flying from Halifax to Toronto
Time to backtrack a bit.

After teaching on Wednesday I made it into the Parish Hall just in time for Edmund's shape-note hymn singing session ('Great! We need a bass'), and then after dinner Nick and I ran away from the ceilidh and went sailing instead with his dad Paul, sister Vanessa and 7 week old nephew Win. Many G&T's were drunk, and we got back in the dark with Nick playing the Trumpet Hornpipe (that's the Captain Pugwash theme to British readers) on the melodica, just in time for supper prepared by his gran. When he dropped me off in the early hours of the morning at the Butlers', we agreed to get up the next morning and go to Anne-Marie's early dance class, and as a result of Thursday and Friday's classes, I'm now just about barely competent at the menuet, branle, gavotte and bourrée (pas de bourrée, pas de bourrée ...) - a great way to start the day.

Thursday night was Boxwood talent night where I found myself reverting to type, playing some gospel piano for Pat (wow), singing shape-note hymns again, having a minuscule speaking part in the Cult of the Bambologists (don't ask), and (hooray) conducting my wonderful listening class in a performance of Fred Frith's 'Screen'. I was expecting a 'Springtime for Hitler' kind of audience reaction, but several people told me afterwards how entranced they had been, even though they had no idea what was going on. Here we are after our openair afternoon rehearsal, when the birds and the foghorns joined in.

DG and I share the same wedding anniversary - not to each other of course - so Laurel kindly took this picture of us looking suitably miserable at the back of the hall apart from our spouses.

Yesterday I gave in to requests for an extra listening class, and used my one tiny remaining spot of free time to buy some of Mariëtte Roodenburg's Sea Squares, with Mariëtte helping me choose. If in doubt, ask the artist! Her photographs of fog are breathtaking, but I couldn't fit any of those in my suitcase. She does ship worldwide though ... 

There was just time for a quick rehearsal before the Boxwood finale concert - apparently there had been a real rehearsal at 3pm, but no-one told me!  I got to play the quite exceptional Yamaha piano in St John's Church when Vortex 3 did their thing in the second half, and we roped in Max Kasper and Nick to become Vortex 5 for 'a good start'. The first half finished with another serious klezmer workout with Adrianne, and in the interval, she said possibly the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me after playing a set, which was 'If I never play with you again ... I'll kill myself!' So I look forward to going berserk on the harmonium again some time in the future. Pierre's amazing dancing in the final set of tunes had Kyla dub him 'firecracker shoes' - 10 minutes earlier she'd been fast asleep on the floor at the front while dad Ethan was getting cool shots of us all on his amazing little Panasonic HD camera ...

After a quick beer DG and I headed for Halifax, and he posted me through the door of the Neville/Money household at about 1.30am. This morning Kirsty and Kyla took me shopping for presents (including here), and we watched some of Ethan's video footage of yesterday. It's fascinating to watch well-shot pictures of yourself teaching and playing, sometimes in closeup. It becomes very clear what's working well and what isn't.