UK 2014 - On the road again... Or, rather, 'Still on the Road'.

Our intention is always to share highlights of our travels as we go, but in reality we're generally too busy doing the traveling to write about it. So once again, this is more of a "looking back" post, but it's recent enough that we haven't had time to unpack yet from this trip!

We got back to Ireland in March. The weather wasn't too bad. The house wasn't too bad, either - only a bit of mold and a lot of musty towels, clothes and bedding. We had two weeks to get turned around and start the UK tour, and we spent most of that time scrubbing walls and running loads of laundry.

The one big disappointment was that after the very first shower on our return, the shower unit died. Blew a capacitor and seriously fried. Good thing we have a bathtub, too. As much as we like seeing our friends here, we didn't want to return to the days of showing up for visits with towels and shampoo.

So, leaving shower repairs for later but having taken care of the important stuff of airing and cleaning both house and caravan (because we'll have company starting to arrive very shortly after we get back here), we hit the road...

... and arrive in Liverpool.

Our first few shows were in the North of England, and we had one day early on when we decided to just be tourists for the day. This was after a show in Guisborough, so first off we walked up the street from our hotel for a look at the ruins of the old cathedral. This has to be the fourth or fifth time we've played in this town, and we never even knew this was here!

From there, the logical thing to do was head for the coast by the most scenic route we could find. Actually it looks a lot like our road in Ireland, except we can't see the ocean ahead of us when we're driving into the village.

We went the long way around, through Borrowby, to Staithes - a gorgeous little seaside town perched on the sides of a... is there an English term for fjord?

It was still early in the year, so the bright sun only warmed the place up a little bit

but that didn't make the beach any less popular.

Making our way farther north, we got to Northumberland. No work here, just a couple of days off between the shows in northern England and the ones in Scotland, and we wanted to spend them with our friend Liz.

And there happens to be this great little bakery in Allendale, which made a good excuse for a walk to pick up some savories for dinner.

Liz is a wonderful Appalachian dulcimer player. We went out for a session with her in a local pub just after we arrived, and spent the rest of our time there going around to visit (and play music with) all the old friends we bumped into there - Ian and Marilyn and Chris and Anne... and then we were out of time and on the road again.

Onward and Northward, here we are in Scotland. We arrived just in time for Easter with Steven and Elizabeth. And set out for another walk on another beautiful but chilly and windy beach.

Getting off the beach seemed like a good (warm) idea, but then, from the top of this hill, Steven pointed out North Berwick Law and suggested we go climb it...

Here's the marker at the top.

And here's the view at the top. There had been a whalebone arch erected here, and this is the modern, synthetic replacement.

I don't now how we got so lucky with the weather, but a few days later we were out sightseeing again (this time to Tantallon Castle, a semi-ruined mid-14th-century fortress). Look at that bright blue and green. In Scotland!

The rest of our time up in Scotland was a grand whirlwind of reunions with friends we hadn't seen in far too many years, interspersed with some really nice shows and amazing scenery, and then we were back in England. The bluebells hadn't been quite out yet in Scotland, but they were almost finished in Yorkshire.

In addition to the human friends we get to stay with, we also get plenty of feline and canine companionship along the way. Eska was the new puppy when we came to Birdsedge last year. She's still a puppy - a very BIG puppy.

Millie still thinks she's a puppy, too, but she has been around for awhile. She and her people, now in Manchester, used to live down the road from us here in Ireland. Fortunately Dave and Helen found a place right next to a very big park, so she still has open fields to run around.

The morning after our show in Louth, we went for a walk up the winding bell tower stairs to the steeple of the cathedral church. A good workout, and an even better view from the top.

And the prettiest bathroom window I've ever seen :)

Near the end of the trip we were back in Norwich, where this blog, and in fact our whole career and life together began. Norwich Folk Club meets in this lovely old Church Hall. And there's Bridget, coming out the door to greet us. 

Well, that was it. Round and round and up and down and back and forth, and the miles (and months) fly by. Now we're back in Ireland. Will post more soon. 'Bye for now.

Highlights of the 2011 UK Tour

We've been back in Ireland over a week already, and I haven't begun to sort through all the pictures I took on the UK tour. Didn't get much opportunity for posting along the way, so I'm just going to post a fairly random selection of snapshots of the trip here.One last load of laundry before we go. The weather was so nice in the week before we left we never even had to use the dryer. That's unusual for Ireland!

I didn't get any pictures of the lovely Arts Center in Glasgow where we had our first performance, but you can see some here.
After that we had a few free days to spend by the sea with two wonderful friends in Prestonpans, just the other side of Edinburgh. Okay, I know it's the Firth of Forth, not the sea, but it feels like a seaside holiday to me. Steven and Elizabeth and their sweet cats Midnight and Zorro have become part of our extended family on the road.

Our next gig was up in Fife. Steven and Elizabeth had been talking for months, since we first posted the date on our calendar, about making a pilgrimage to the famous Anstruther Fish Bar. Didn't sound like the best idea right before a concert, but the perfect solution presented itself... Stay at S & E's friends' house in St Andrews before the show, so we can pig out on fish & chips the previous day. Also turned out to be a great opportunity for a walking tour of St Andrews, which we'd never spent any time in before.



Taking pictures along Lade Brae Walk; the beautiful house we stayed in; impressive ruins in St Andrews; Anstruther Fish Bar (behind the ship).

The concert in the Town Hall in Crail was great fun, and Steven was right there on the front row getting pictures of everything we played on through the evening. Here's the double ocarina. And of course, Mike's lovely Larrivee guitar. In addition to all the instruments we brought, one of the resident performers played a couple of pieces on nyckelharpa. Wonderful!




We had a short stop in Yorkshire next at another of our UK home bases - Birdsedge. Perfect timing, too; the bluebells were out to greet us.





So then, we had a little extra time before we had to be in Dartmouth for Dart Music Festival (fortunately; that's a long drive).







And talk about perfect timing... There was a hurdy gurdy festival that weekend, right along our route. Okay, it wasn't the main route we would have taken otherwise, but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to sit in a pub and have a jam with roomful of gurdy players! (Thanks to Bridget for posting this photo on the UK Hurdy Gurdy forum).



Dartmouth was the one stop on the tour that I managed to do a post about, so I'll skip that and move along...


Our next two shows were within easy range of, yes, another home on the road. John and Joy took us for a walk around the lake in a nearby park, formerly the grounds of a stately manor house. The house is now a hotel, and the lake is home to many birds.





All the baby grebes wanted to see if we had food for them, but their mother didn't want them talking to strangers.



Just look at her amazing feet!











A wonderful day, but pretty seriously breezy...

And another special treat - one of the resident players at Stockton Folk Club brought his hurdy gurdy. Which would have been a great chance to jam together, but mine's a G and his is D... Well, all the gurdy players will know what I'm talking about!

Anyway, continuing north, after a stop for our first ever show in Cramlington, we drove across to Allendale for a nice stopover with Liz and Terry. Who - would you believe - also had a friend who had a hurdy gurdy. So yet another musical evening fell into place on our night off. Dulcimers, both hammered and fretted, songs, Scottish small pipes, gurdies... Yay!

I'm realizing as I write this that we did a lot more walking on this trip than usual. Liz & Terry introduced us to yet another beautiful garden park, this one created from on old station along a former railway.






If you click on this second picture to enlarge it, you can even just make out Liz and me taking the high road while Mike and Terry walked along the rail bed below.






I was glad we decided to walk along the top of the cut, because otherwise we wouldn't have spotted this great rebar sculpture.







And then of course, when you've been walking in a garden park, you have to stop for a bit of tea and cake, don't you? This is England, after all! (So much for the benefits of all that walking.)






There was still one more stop, at a delightful acoustic music club up in Bellingham, but between drizzle and sniffles, the camera didn't come out again.

We made our way back to Ireland on a red-eye ferry, and here we are, back at work on the old stone house.