Monday 11th February 2008

Another week and another two sessions. The Irish session in the Anchor at Wingham was excellent. It just managed to reach that critical mass to make it go with a swing and give every set a lift. Although not an audience friendly pub (because of the layout), the acoustics are wonderful. There were the usual jokes and stories and banter and teasing as well as the tunes which comes I suppose from years of playing together every week. We can guarantee there is at least one weekly joke from our piper, and this week's involved Camels. Not the one about 'we use it to ride into town' but the one about the bricks and doesn't it hurt? There is one particular trait that always causes us all mirth. The piper looks up from playing to inquire how many times through we've played something. It is always twice. Always. So now it's a fixed event, if the piper asks, it's only twice.

The Thursday Session at the Bear was pretty much back to normal following the return of the beloved leader. One of our regulars is in the US at the moment so she was missed, but we had a welcome visit from Chris the concertina who comes out to play far too infrequently but as a school teacher he is forgiven. We don't have the friendly banter in the same way at this session although everyone is perfectly amiable - except to the one string bass which luckily hasn't been around recently. A bit heavy on the songs and the poet didn't get a look in but that's the way it goes sometimes. We were also fortunate to have two players from Drohne - Phil Martin and Geoff who brightened the whole thing up with Hurdy Gurdy, Pipes and those amazing things that Geoff plays which look like a cross between a medieval musical instrument and a device of torture. They sound great though.

Another normal week (Wednesday - Anchor - Wingham, Thursday - Bear - Faversham) but being the second Monday of the month, there is a French Session at Preston (Half Moon and Seven Stars) and next Monday will be Tilmanstone for the mixed session.

By the way, Beau (of Kentfolk) has produced a CD of session tunes from the Wednesday Irish, and the tunes are also available for download from his site.