Canadian sun

Dear all,

Well here I am in Canada. I’m in an extremely jolly mood after a really lovely evening last night. I write to you on a lovely day – the sun is shining, birds are singing and the view is beautiful! Last night Meaghan and I began our tour with a house concert run by two of the nicest people you could possibly meet. Michael and Shawn are so hospitable and so welcoming and they gave us a wonderful gig. The audience were similarly delightful and I feel I’ve made some new friends here in New Brunswick. As regular readers of this blog will know, there are things about my job that drive me up the pole and international travel can be hard work and stressful but it’s so wonderful to come to another country, share music and meet such remarkable people. So quite a start to the tour and a lot to live up to!

Anyway, just to update you on happenings too I had a fantastic tour with UFQ. After Fishguard we played two delightful village halls in Wiltshire and stayed with some lovely people and had some nice whisky. Then followed a trip up north to Swaledale festival which was absolutely brilliant and organised by the wonderful Malcolm Creese who is an outstanding musician himself as well as an absolute gentleman. Finally we finished off the tour with two appearances at the Gate To Southwell festival which coincided with Sabela’s 1st birthday (daughter of Joe and Paloma of UFQ). She stole the show by crawling all the way up the centre of the audience with a beaming smile towards the stage. Cute!

UFQ have become such a wonderful part of my life both as people and musicians. We had a great tour with our best attendances and, we felt, our best music so far. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, many more gigs to come over the summer and on our autumn tour. On the subject of great musicians, I also found time to hang out with Indian sarangi maestro Suhail Yusuf Khan just before I flew to Canada. We even popped into the studio to begin recording a little something…stay tuned for details. I met Suhail out in India and he and I toured in the recent past in the UK. He is a phenomenal musician and we’re looking to do more soon.

Hope you’re all good. I’m off to get some lovely Canadian sun!