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We've been yee hawing all weekend and on into Wednesday in WB land. First over to Portsmouth on Easter Sunday for the Springtime (oh dear someone forgot to tell the weather) Hometown Hoedown at the Edge of the Wedge where we did a daytime set as part of their whole weekend of shennanigans, then on to Gosport where WB favourite Shep Wooley was hosting two days of merriment at the Masonic Hall for a feast of Easter Folk and then over to Lymington on Wednesday evening for the lovely folk club held in the Thomas Tripp pub in that fair town. 

The Hometown Hoedown was fun, there are some lovely photos pending taken by the very talented Jonny Bell https://www.facebook.com/jonnybellmusic?group_id=0 whose rose coloured specs may need adjusting cos he said I looked angelic under the lights.  The mood I was in that day did not match the compliment! I had got out of bed with my skin on inside out that day and no matter what, I did not feel like myself again until very late in the night after a couple of glasses of wine at a friends house! You may have noted that this must have been after the Feast of Easter folk gig. Well yes, the sound check went badly, I couldn't remember the chords of one of the songs we play most often (!) and got quite diva like at one point, well diva like for me anyway probably not really diva like.... When we did our set all went well apart from Pointless, a song I play organ on. The chords aren't complicated but they are important (aren't they all?!) and it became clear in the first chorus that although we were all playing the right notes we were (Eric Morecombe style) not necessarily playing them in the right order. The resulting cacophony was less than amusing at the time, still the rest of the set passed ok and the audience were great. There were some other fabulous acts on, Sea Shanty singers especially which I was surprised to like. All grist to the mill.

The highlight of the week has to be the Lymington Folk club though. The audience were delightful, the host was a dream, I had worn a totally appropriate dress (not that I usually dress inappropriately ) and we were on with a fabulous guy - Al Scorch and his Country Soul Ensemble. They were awesome!  http://www.alscorch.com/category/blog if you get a chance to see them I would recommend it you will not be sorry, totally uplifting and toe tapping and all the good things music should be! The gig was totally acoustic, we went on stage in between Al Scorch and his most marvellous marvels two sets, so they had a break whilst we played. We were arranged around a single mic, I want to say appellation style but don't know if that's right, please can someone put me straight on that in the comments? So the only one who was wired up was Si on the bass. We needed to be about 3 feet away from the mic in order to be picked up. I was terrified, being almost an acoustic set virgin my knees were so knocking for the first song, I had to hold my stomach to stop my voice shaking! It went well though and the feedback from the audience will be treasured for a very long time! Very cool.