I’m a lucky chap. I’m getting on now (I’m 33 yesterday) but I still have a great family who always manage to get me some really fun presents. Wii was definitely a feature of this year’s gifts and tonight I’ve been playing Wii Fit Plus. There’s some great new games in it, although my favourites are the juggling and the kung fu. I also got Mario Kart, Colin McRae Dirt Rally and another fitness one (can’t remember the name of it).

My folks paid for half of my new fiddle for me. A week ago today, I went to John Dike’s Violins in Sherborne and managed to find one stand out fiddle. In fact, the rest I didn’t much like but I liked this French fiddle that had been recently repaired from a sound post crack down the back. It cost £800, but my parents have kindly offered to pay half, so that was my very generous present from them.

Yesterday evening I went and saw the new Pixar movie, Up. It was really good. I could see myself in the old man, Carl. We saw it in 3D too, which was really great. Caroline wasn’t so impressed with the 3D, but I thought it worked well. It’s a reason to actually go to the cinema rather than just wait until it comes out on Blue Ray! We ate beforehand at TGI Friday’s a gorgeous, if somewhat oversized, meal before using our vouchers to get in the film for free

We’re off out tomorrow lunch for a meal with my parents and sister. I’m not sure if we’ve decided where to go yet, but we’ve also got various shopping tasks to do too before going to a fireworks do in the evening. Sunday evening we’re off around a musician friend’s house for another bonfire do. It’s a busy weekend!

A couple of weeks ago Daisy and I started on our diet again. I’d ballooned to 13 stone 8lb (86kg, 190lb) and my legs were starting to feel it: I’ve been having some trouble with my right hip for the last few weeks. Daisy’s also put on weight (better not tell!) so we’re back on the WeightWatchers diet again. It’s a very good diet – you can still have goodies as long as you count the points and don’t go over for the week. We don’t visit the meetings because we have all the books to do it ourselves (although it’s debatable if we have the motivation that the meetings give you).

Before we started the diet, we had already decided to do more exercise. Once a week I meet up with my friend and play badminton or squash, while Daisy goes swimming or to aqua aerobics with my friend’s partner. Last night I played squash for the first time in a while (both my friend and I prefer badminton). It was no more knackering than badminton, but much harder to play. That said, I felt much more able to play the game than the last time I played a couple of months ago. Still, I think we’ll continue to play badminton most often.

It’s a difficult time to start a diet. With my birthday and Christmas coming up, one must have nerves of steel not to end up binge eating. I’m sure we’ll forget the points on my birthday and Christmas day but we must stand strong on the days following.

It was Halloween last night and as I live in “bungalow city”, the lair of the old and infirm, I was not expecting any Trick or Treaters. In fact, we’ve not had any Trick or Treaters since we first moved here over 6 Halloweens ago. So it came as a surprise when the door bell rang while I was sitting, wrapped up in a blanket, enjoying Strictly Come Dancing.

Caroline and I looked at each other. We’ve just started a diet, so we have a lot of spare chocolate hanging around the house at the moment and we had already made some decisions about what we might give a Trick or Treater — it pays to be ready!

I begrudgingly got up and headed to the cupboard to get the boxes of sweets. When I got to the door I could see two young girls, probably early teens, standing outside dressed in black with blackish faces. They’d made a bit of an effort at least. More than the boys who once turned up to my mother-in-law’s house who wanted a penny for the guy when their guy was just their brother in a pram. I would have liked to have seen them burning that one!

I answered the door with my best scared face on. They weren’t scary, but I thought I would humour them.

“Wahh.. what have we got here?”
“Trick or Treat?”
“Uhm…”, I thought for a minute. Shall I let them off lightly? Nahh. “Well, what will you do if I don’t give you a treat?”

This came as a shock to them. ‘Was it really necessary to think up tricks these days?’ They looked at each other. They clearly hadn’t come prepared for having to actually do tricks. They just wanted the treats. One thought quickly.

“I’ll shine my torch in your face,” she proffered as a possible scary thing. Oh no, not the Torch of Dooom!
“That’s not a very good trick, is it?” I said, knowing the Torch of Doom was clearly the Harbinger of the Apocalypse.
“Oh, er…” It was clear at this point they were getting desperate. Was it possible this mad old bloke wasn’t actually going to give them chocolate after all their ‘effort’. The quick thinker had an idea and began to crack her fingers. It was quite gross and I’d put them through enough, so I feigned disgust at the cracking and got the chocolates.

I bought a couple of big boxes of “pick-n-mix” type ‘chocolate’ sugar shape things a while back during a weak moment in a wholesalers. We hadn’t got around to eating many because they’re really quite sickly. I’m sure they’re 99% sugar and 1% colouring. I offered our the box and the ghouls’ eyes lit up. “Whoa…” I told them to take a handful and they duly did, putting their booty into the bag they were carrying just for the occasion.

I remember back in the days when the idea was to go out with bags of sugar that you threatened to throw at the occupant’s car or their windows or, if you were really mean, at them! Nowadays kids go out without a thought about the tricks; they might as well turn up at your door and say “Chocolate or not?”

It’s been a while since I updated — it always is I’ve been meaning to post these two videos for a while.

The first I did after seeing Breabach play a concert in Wimborne as part of the Celtic Folk club here. They were fantastic. Ewan Robertson plays guitar and sings, Callum MacCrimmon and Donal Brown play pipes, whistles and flutes and the lovely Pasty Reid plays fiddle. Unfortunately Donal wasn’t there, but another fantastic chap took his place (although I can’t remember his name right now). At the concert we indulged in a purchase of their CD – The Big Spree – and it has since (3 weeks now) been a permanent fixture in the car’s CD player. On that CD the band sing a song called The Rolling Hills of the Borders. It was written by Glaswegian Matt McGinn but it’s Breabach’s version that I really like. I attempted my own version (not a patch on their’s but still fun to do).

I also did another music video recently. It’s a couple slides played on the concertina and the fiddle: The Road to Lisdoonvarna and Two Little Boats Went Out to Sea.

Been working out in the garden today. We’ve been chopping down some more of the large fir trees that have been attempting to take over the back part of the garden. Dad and I had made good in-roads into getting rid of them some time back but it’s taken until now for me to continue to do the others.

It’s was a lovely day though – very springy and about 14 degrees centigrade. Daisy came and did the shredding while I weilded the chainsaw. Currently the garden is still in the getting-worse-before-getting-better stage, although the hope is once we’ve replaced the aging fence along the back and we’ve planted some nice shrubs, the garden will start to look smarter again.

When chopping down one of the trees we found a perfectly formed nest. It was really well constructed and very solidly built. We suspect a Robin. This is, of course, the problem with pulling down the trees in our garden – It doesn’t seem very wildlife friendly. We will be replacing the trees with easier to handle shrubs and we’re going to choose them carefully to be most wildlife friendly. However, there will still be no where much for the birds to nest. For that reason, we have a bunch of bird boxes that we’re putting up around the garden on the few beech trees that we’re leaving in place. We put them up today, so I hope it’s not too late for the birds to find them and move in.

[caption id="attachment_480" align="aligncenter" width="339" caption="Tit box in Situ"]
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I was hoping that maybe we could cut the lawn today (using my newly fixed mower! woohoo!) but we were just too busy with the trees. Our mower has been out of action since the middle of last summer after the handle broke. This weekend I actually managed to get around to making a new handle (better to fix something than get a new one, of course). You can see my “interesting” bit of woodwork below. Believe it or not, it’s more comfy than the old plastic handle.

Two days ago, Daisy said my hair looked “uneven”. I’d already been called “the wild man of Borneo”. So, this morning, she cut my hair. Now I look less like a hippy-folkie and more like a sensible insurance salesman from suburbia.

Talking of before and afters, I am very pleased with the transformation of Gail, our bald and insipid looking hen. Gail and her mate, Claire, have moved out into the main run, although separated from the golden girls (Branche, Dot and Rose) by a fence. They both look very healthy now. Check for yourself how she looked when we got her in October and how she compares now in March.

In the past six months or so I’ve been half-heartedly trying to learn to play DADGAD guitar. Tuning the guitar to DADGAD provides a very different timbre for accompaniment to songs or melodic instruments: the strings ring out (if you can be accurate with your fingering) and the deep bass provides a lovely accent when needed.

Back in August I posted a cover of Wild Mountain Thyme, which I used a DADGAD guitar to accompany. I used some basic chord for that:

Recently, I’ve been trying to do more finger picking on DADGAD. The video below is Shi Beg Shi Mhor written by Turlough O’Carolan, the blind harpist that lived from 1670 to 1738. The tune is apparently based on a legend about a war between two fairy tribes. It’s a beautiful tune.

Shi Beg Shi Mhor, DADGAD

I have also been learning to play Paul Brady’s lovely tune, The Lakes of Pontrachain. Paul actually plays it in DADF#AD (Open D) tuning, but it’s just as easy (easier?) to play in DADGAD. The issue with doing a video of that, is that it requires someone to sing the melody

Yesterday, Daisy and myself purcahsed a new car. It’s a 6-month old Toyota Aygo.

Although buying a new car is somewhat against the general eco-principles that Daisy and I try to live to, it became clear that it was becoming a necessity.

For the past year and a half, since my car died, Daisy and I have been sharing our car. When I needed to go to work, I would take Daisy to work first. Due to the locations of our respective works, this car sharing meant the car was actually doing more miles than two cars going separately to the locations. As I’m going to be going to work a little more often during the first year of my new project, this would quickly become uneconomical (and less ecological).

Another problem was that Daisy’s car that we were sharing has just run out of MOT and, without some work, is not going to pass any time soon.

However, we tried to get a car which was as ecological (and therefore economical) as possible. The Aygo is very basic (and therefore quite inexpensive). It only has a 1 litre engine which will get it to 60mph in about 14 seconds. It’s not sporty, that’s for sure, but I’m old and staid now and it suits me perfectly On motorway driving it should return about 70 miles to a gallon of petrol. It’s cabon-dioxide emissions are 109 grammes per kilometre, which puts it in tax-band B, in the UK. This means we only pay £35 road tax this year and next year it will only be £20.

We purposely bought an almost-new car such that we would still retain most of 3-year the manufacturer’s warranty. As it’s the “plus” version, it has extra air-bags and child-seat fixing points. We got one without air-con, partly to save money and partly because it’s more ecological not to have it.

It’s really the first time I’ve had a modern small car and I have been surprised at the room inside. It’s very spacious, although the boot space is tiny.

Anyway, I intend to keep a log-book of the mileage I do in it, so I shall be able to let you know exactly how economical it turns out.

For Christmas I was a very lucky boy. I got myself an Rochelle anglo concertina. It’s like an small accordion – in fact, it’s more like two harmonica’s tied together with bellows. It was pretty confusing to play at first because each button plays a different note depending on whether you are drawing air through the bellows, or pushing air out of the bellows.

Anyway, for the past couple of months I’ve been trying to get a bit better, and I’ve now posted my first recording on YouTube.

SwallowTail Jig and Out on the Ocean

The tunes are two jigs – The Swallowtail Jig and Out on the Ocean.

I found that to play the anglo, you have to clear your mind of anything and do your best not to think about whether to draw or push the bellows and just let your arms work it out — that’s why there’s a blank look on my face most of the time!!

The music is available on The Session, although I’ve scored it out below, if you want to play along.

As with all the multi-track videos I do now, this was recorded into the computer first (while videoing onto tape) and mixed into an MP3. The video was then captured and synched up. This time I was trying out the trial version of Edit Studio 6 which is why there’s a watermark on the video.

It was a sad moment early in January when Stumpy died. She was the last surviving chicken from our first batch of chickens that introduced us to the wonderful world of smallholding. She had a sour crop and our best efforts with the drugs seemed to clear that up, but there was clearly another issue. Up until lthe last few hours, she seemed quite content and Daisy and I thank her for all the eggs and pleasure she gave us. She is now buried in the garden with her three friends.

Merry Christmas to one and all. Hope you have a lovely relaxing few days.