Cummersdale Folk Session

It was the Cummersdale Folk Session last night, a slow start due to the lack of instrumentalists, but it livened up later on with nice sets played on the whistle. I played more concertina this week, some tunes with the other players: Jimmy Allan, Salmon Tails, Saddle the Pony, Miss Thompsons Hornpipe, Bollavogue, Boys of the Blue Hill, the tune to Captain Pugwash! But I mainly played the bodhran which I am enjoying a lot.

Instruments present were: guitar, whistles, wooden flute, banjo, metal flute, 2 English concertinas, and bodhran.

I am practicing other tunes: the Hawk, Minstrels Fancy, Random, Sheffield Hornpipe, Humours of Tulleycrine, Redesdale Hornpipe, Whinsheilds Hornpipe, and Whinham’s Reel.

Byocycle City Speed Review (update)

It’s been about 9 months since I got the electric bike and I have learned a few things from riding it. The first is not to treat it like a normal bike, it is not. The weight and size of its wheels make it a very poor bike compared to a full size racer or touring bike with 700 wheels. But it is a great bike and if you use it in a certain way it is just as good.

I use the different systems as gears; I use the systems for different tasks:

The gears can be used as normal, but I rarely go onto the 1st or 6th gear. I use gears on the flat, on the top of a hill, on the descent, when I am climbing using the pedal system, but I do not use gears all the time, the bike is too heavy for that.

The pedal system is the most used while riding. It adds to the cycling, the motor and the cycling leave the legs without stress or tiredness. While going uphill I have it on and it is like being pushed, on a long flat piece of road I use it to make the head wind a little easier to cycle against. I rarely have it on ‘medium’ or ‘high’, I use it in ‘low’ mostly. I use the gears 2-4 depending on the hill, if it is a long hill I use a lower gear.

The throttle system, I use sparingly, I get bored sitting there not doing anything. I use it on flats, when my legs are tired, when I am peddling and I want a bit of help. I use it to get over busy roads fast, or to get passed a bit of road which I do not want to be on. I use it to coast along, to move but not to speed.

All these systems are used in a cycle of about 25 miles round trip; sometimes I get off and walk up the bigger hills to use different muscles in my legs. The battery is still on ‘3 lights’ when I am finished.

I can pack it into my boat, and I intend to use it on some camping holidays later this year.

Of course there are disadvantages, one being the size of the wheels makes you pedal faster, but this can be solved by better technique. My tires keep on deflating I am not sure if this is due to the weight or a leaking valve, but I am blowing the tires up every other day. I do not know how to change the back inner tube due to all the electrics or where to oil the motor parts… there were no instructions for this.

Lake District on my 50th Birthday

My 50th birthday was turning out to be a depressing day. I had not found anyone to spend it with and I was seeing that as a reflection of my current position in life. “50, alone, friendless...” not a good beginning. I had decided to go off to the Lake District to walk to Watlendeth and have a coffee at the farm house coffee shop; the walk is always nice if you get off at Rothswaite walk over the tops into the valley of Watlendeth. A bus to Keswick then another to Rothswaite by using the North West Explorer Ticket is still good value.

My walk was still in a negative mood, the weather was not brilliant and the people I met were all coupled. Having my coffee was not much better; everyone seemed to be with someone and all talking about children, relations, and friends. I decided it is better to be alone than to spend it with others as one can feel lonely in a crowd. 

I changed my route and retraced my steps not choosing the easier flatter option to Ashness Bridge and Surprise View. When I got to the top of the pass I decided to change my route again and go off the path into the hills. It was a little like a fairy story of going into the “magical forest” my mood began to change, I began to be happier, I began to take pleasure in getting my boots dirty, in noticing the beauty around me, I was alone but not lonely.

I took videos and photos I sank into the bog; I slipped over long grass and scrambled over rocks. The view was different; no longer the same route I often take, my perspective was changing.

Later, I regained the path and descended to Rosthwaite, but then I took another path one I had not been on before. A less used path through trees and high ferns.

 I video emptiness, the magical forest was indeed magical a stillness and beauty with the richness of the colour. I was heading back to Keswick but it felt like in a different country.

I got to the road but then I decided to go another route again this time I did not know where I was going. I climbed, and when I fork came, on the disused track, I took the higher path. 

It ascended sharply, was it an old shepherds track or a sheep path, it was certainly unused. I walked through high ferns, often the path disappeared underneath the grasses. It went higher, steeper; the flowers became wilder, colorful.

I thought to turn back as I had to get back for the bus, but again I found myself continuing higher, further way from the road. Sweat was pouring down my face, no water and feeling a little tired, the heat was intense. I was enjoying myself immensely.

the path went up the mountain

I got to a stone wall and saw the path going higher but this was my limit, I knew it. So I turned back and descended the same way. It took me a fraction of the time, soon I found myself by the road and then I detoured off the road to the river. Standing in the cold water splashing myself with water I felt very good, not lonely, not depressed, and only content. I did not need people, I needed to find myself and I had found it that day from going to new places, new routes, and new journeys, it had engaged and interested me.

Cummersdale Folk Session and Folk Monkhill Session

Last week I visited the Cummersdale Session just outside of Carlisle. It used to be my local session, mainly an Irish session, instrumentals dominating. I had not been for a few years and an email from one of the musicians prompted me to go again. I took the concertina and bodhran which I played most of the time. I am no longer able to keep up with the tempo of Irish music; my style has developed into a slower style with more phrasing, so I play bodhran with an occassional melody on the concertina. The instruments which are there generally consist of: flute, whistles, English Concertina, fiddle, Angle Concertina, banjo, bodhran… other musicians sometimes drop in but it is generally an instrumental Irish session and singers are not so often there.

Last night it was the Monkhill Session, just outside of Carlisle. This session is a mixed session with singers and instrumentals taking equal billing. Last night some of the Cummersdale musicians came along and it was a nice mixture of song, instrumentals and a few Irish melodies thrown in too! Generally the instrumentals at Monkhill are a mixture of southern English, Northumbrian, European, and the songs are Border ballads, Scots songs, modern and older, and a few local songs about the Haaf netting fishing which is on the Solway Estuary. It is a relaxed session with no one or no music dominating. The same people go to the Bowness Session on the 2nd Sunday of the month and in both sessions new singers/instrumentalists are welcomed. I play my Northumbrian small pipes as well English concertina and it is nice to have people play along. The instruments which are there are: whistles, guitars, English Concertina, octave mandolin, occasionally a fiddle, bodhran, and Northumbrian small pipes.

Cummersdale and Monkhill (also Bowness on Solway) are small villages with only 1 pub so you can not miss them if you decide to go!
Bowness takes places on the 2nd Sunday of the month
Cummersdale is on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month
Monkhill is not always regular but generally it is the 3rd Sunday of the month…

Busking and Begging

When I finally emerged into the tunnel it was late morning. I had not intended to go playing at all, but I positioned myself underneath the arches, where there is a good echo, and played Northumbrian small pipes. I play to practice, to play melodies; I gave up doing it for money long ago when the money dried up. I keep my brain active by playing all the tunes I know. This is an ever changing format, new tunes come and go and I revise them all the time.

These days I am memorizing Peacocks tunes, I hammer them into my memory by playing them over and over again, busking helps to play them well, as it is a performance, and I have to get it right. It is good to play new tunes, it refreshes the set, and it puts new life into an old rehearsed format. I rework the notes, rhythms, and style. I play them fast, slow and everything between, a reel becomes a hornpipe, a slip jig a jig then becomes a waltz… a hornpipe a slow air… I am free to improvise.

As the morning wore on I noticed out the corner of my eye another busker with a guitar standing at the other end of the tunnel, I cannot hear him, but it is cheeky. Normally a busker would not be down here standing so close, there is not the space for 2 musicians. In fact I have never seen another busker there for many years. No one goes there, it is not a good place to make money and it is dirty and dark. But he was singing with his guitar, moving positions, and stopping a lot. Then he was gone.

After a break at 2pm I went back to play a little more. I get tired from standing, and I play until I cannot stand much longer. After a few minutes I notice a few meters away a man, it is like he is on his holidays with a carrying case and bags. It looks like he is arranging his case, but he sits on the floor and there he stays.
He is homeless, he is begging, he just sits there a few paces away.

What to think? This is not the first time a homeless person has sat in this tunnel while I am playing. On one occasion it was nasty, the person had once threatened to “stick a knife in me” if I came back, and a few days later he had knifed another homeless person in the park. Others have told me to “fuck off”, but only this one had sat. I played on. I noticed a couple of his friends hanging around; a man passed and whispered “careful of your case”. Things where turning serious. I played on. No abuse, no threatening movements only silence, only looking on … waiting. As time went on more lost people where hanging around. The park is well known for homeless people at night.

I was called a “beggar” in the early 80s while playing. Thankfully those days are gone; I think people realize playing music is not an easy thing to do on the streets. And I have only had abuse from drunks and drug addicts this then. I guess some people see me also as a “beggar” as a “homeless person” but I am neither.
In the end I moved off, I had played enough, this man was turning a dirty tunnel into something else… something where music is not welcome. I better quit while I still had pipes to play.

I packed up and passed him. I thought him a fool; he chose a place where he would make no money… I was making it. He could have gone to the other end, but he sat in the dirt and dog piss, where he would make nothing while I was there.  When I passed him he looked at me and I at him, he was the type who did not look after himself, a drunk and waist.er Let’s hope he gets lifted and put into a home… like so many others who had sat in his place. It is cruel to be kind as that is no life for anyone.

 I wandered into the center of town, a large merry-go-round was pumping out music… was this the reason why the other busker had come down to the tunnel, to escape the noise? I heard a brass band playing amongst the noise, then they stopped, a police man had stopped them and told them to move… recorded music is ok but live music is not. They were 5 people from Rumania; they looked confused and lost, wandering off down the street with nowhere to play, it was time to go home.