in the air between Heathrow and Montréal
On Friday we revisited Nenthorn, two years to the day since we first drew up and set up in the space the builders had cleared for us amongst the rubble, to record about half of SADN in the dark.

Roy tuning the harpsichord, watched by sinister microphones like something out of HG Wells

Tony and Eve live there now, and have built a stage that takes up half of the schoolroom, and is now their living room.

We recorded all afternoon, six sets of tunes (or was it seven?) including the arses set, a strathspey to precede the polska that precedes 'I see you again', and a great set from the Marshall book which was going to have harmonium in it, but its lung capacity just wasn't up to it. So I played piano along with Alison on Marshall's basslines and listening back to the result was very scary: Gothic nightmare ceilidh band music. 

In the evening an audience congregated and we took votes on what to play: the resultant set which should have taken 45 minutes or so took an hour and a half, what with the good-natured banter between stage and audience and general enjoyable slackness of attitude all round. We'd already celebrated Tony's retirement from sound engineering with champagne earlier. 

The evening eventually degenerated into a bit of an impromptu fiddle session before the long drive home. An unusually productive and very happy day.

On Saturday we were in St Cecilia's Hall, playing lots of Kellie and plugging the new CD. By mentioning Kellie's role as Sovereign of the Beggar's Benison Anstruther, I got to use the phrase 'tiresome wanker' to the Georgian Concert Society audience, which I guess doesn't happen often. I also got to play my favourite harpsichord in the Russell Collection, the 1755 Kirckman. A great party at Noel's afterwards, and after my first taste of alcohol for over a week I suddenly realised how tired I was at about midnight and all my mental processes began to come apart a little rather like this sentence.

But now I'm on my way to Québec via Montréal. Two of the movies on the plane are Vanity Fair, featuring my piano playing, and Sideways, on which composer Rolfe Kent plays guitar and ... melodica. Truly a man of taste and discernment.