flying to Newark
The sensible thing to have done this morning would have been to lie in bed and recover, before going to the airport for the flight home. But Betsy had a better idea, so the Greenberg/Dunlay clan drove me an hour and 40 minutes to go to the Fossil Festival in Brule, and to the beach. We had a wonderful swim in water which was as warm as a swimming pool at the edge, and salty enough to lie around in, being moved around gently by the waves. Then Betsy drove me to the airport. Just in time.

Mixed emotions as I flew out. I'm desperate to get home, as 10 days is the absolute limit for me to be away from my family, and all of us to be halfway sane. But over the last week and a bit I've had a wonderful time with a really excellent collection of quality people. What fun. I'll miss them too.

Anyway, DG picked Chris and me up from the airport yesterday, and we all assembled for a happily shambolic rehearsal and CBC balance test yesterday afternoon. The broadcasts are on Radio Two on Wednesday at 1pm, then on Sunday 15th at noon. Rod Sneddon got a fantastic sound balance, better than the CD ...

The jolly boys and Betsy went round the corner to African Highlife for a sumptuous meal of goat stew and the best peanut soup I have ever had. And then we were in the mood to play. For some reason, lots of extra drumming sneaked into the concert, as Suzie had bought a couple of drums earlier in the day, and we were all pretty relaxed. The audience seemed to be in the mood for a good time too, and made plenty of encouraging noises throughout. It's nice to look back on a week of concerts and only have one where the whole audience didn't leap to its feet at the end (and that was a polite afternoon concert in Ottawa, and even then some of them did). The second half started with DG playing the Black Jock variations on his own, so Chris

Back to chez Greenberg/Dunlay afterwards for food, prosecco and beer. Well I did it, 6 concerts and a recording in 8 days, with 5 different programmes. Now all I have to do is go home for 24 hours, then I'm off again to record a load of Geminiani.