Hello, and welcome to summer (sort of)!

We’ve had quite a busy but fun month, with more to come.  We have recently attended a couple of festivals up north, which we really enjoyed!

At the end of May we headed up to Shepley in Yorkshire for the Shepley Spring Festival (www.shepleyspringfestival.com) where we experienced not only great music, but a full weekend of lovely warm sunshine.  We had been warned that it is always cold and wet up there this time of year, and went with wellies in tow, but it was shorts and flip flops that were needed this year.  Our favourite venue was The Couch House where the folk club was held.  Fantastic acoustics!  It was here that we saw some great acapella singing, notably from the Owd Chyvers and The Young’uns (www.theyounguns.co.uk).

This weekend just gone we headed north of Nottingham to The Gate of Southwell Folk Festival (www.southwellfolkfestival.org.uk).  Again, a fantastic programme, which kept us busy going from one concert to the next with little time for breath!  The weekend was made all the sweeter by us winning the Open Mic Competition and getting to play a couple of songs at the closing concert.  We were honoured to be chosen and really enjoyed playing there.

Back in London a couple of Sunday’s ago we made our debut at the Brixton Windmill, where we played out in the garden by the BBQ.  It was for the CD launch for our friends Juniper Leaf (www.myspace.com/thejuniperleaf) , who put on a mini festival for the occasion.  They played a great set and the whole event was lots of fun.

As usual, we have been heading down to Folk in the Cellar in Camden every other Thursday, and made our way to Monday Monday in Clerkenwell, which from next week will be found at The Cross Kings in Kings Cross so if you have a chance head over there when you can! 

Next Sunday, June 27, you will find us at the Walthamstow Folk Club playing as part of their end of season night Futureproof .  The folk at Walthamstow have been very supportive of us and have kindly offered us half of the programme for this evening.  The other half will be our friend from Folk in the Cellar, Emma Scarr (www.myspace.com/emmascarr) who will be playing with another friend Garry Smith (www.myspace.com/garrymsmith).  It starts at 7.30 and it would be lovely to see some friendly faces down there!  We even have a few new songs…

Until next time J

This was going to be our April update, but suddenly its May!  We had a busy 2nd half of April (one of us was in Australia for the first half), with a Monday Monday gig, a Folk Against Fascism gig and a night at a brand new London folk night as well as our usual bi-weekly trips down to one of our favourite nights.

So, Monday Monday is going from strength to strength with Graham bringing fantastic acts to Clerkenwell (and kindly asking us to come along and play too every now and then).  The next one is on the 17th, where we'll be supporting Lou Brown.  Her myspace page (www.myspace.com/loubrownmusic) states that she draws inspiration from, amongst other things, her love of "The Sound of Music".  As this was my favourite movie when I was growing up, I'm looking forward to the seeing how this will link together!

The last week of April saw a week of Folk Against Fascism events, and we were asked to play at Walthamstow Folk Club's contribution to the week.  It was a great night, with many anti-Nick Griffin songs and poems.  Post election, we are of course very pleased that the BNP didn't get any seats. 

On the last Tuesday of the month we went along and played at the brand new Folk @ The Forge in camden (www.myspace.com/folkattheforge) run by the lovely Chris Sarjeant.  This is a monthly even in the restaurant attached to The Forge and I believe Chris has some great guests lined up for the coming months, so get down there if you can. 

Last but not least, you will more likely than not find us down at Folk in the Cellar at The Constitution in Camden every other Thursday (www.myspace.com/folkinthecellar).  This is very much an interactive night, so come down and bring an instrument or just your voice.  There are 10 min floor spots available between 9-11, and then a session for all.  Its very friendly and inclusive and is always a great night (plus there's cake at half time!).

That's about it for now.  Hope to see you out and about at one of our gigs (or someone elses) soon.

So we did the Eliza Carthy support gig in March....'the big one' for us, we knew it was coming up for a few months and was seeming like a scary day looming large, we had a few rehearsals with a PA in a local studio and were about as ready as we could be, turned out to be really fun, and we both enjoyed the performance and gig, though we did have a bit of a hangover the next day, still reckon we deserved a pint or two.