2024

Our 2024 has had its up and downs. We are pretty well, which is good, but we lost our lovely cat Pablo at the start of the year, which was a huge blow. He was so much a part of our lives. 

On the plus side Mike has had a new hip, which is much better than the old one. In many ways it's been 'The Year of the Hip' - not necessarily in a bad way (often in a good way) but it has rather dominated the year! Anyway....

In January we saw the Bothy Band in Glasgow, who had reformed for a few special concerts. We first saw them in Birmingham in 1976 - they completely blew us away then and did it again 48 years later. We got to go to our granddaughter's 4th birthday party. Both wonderful!

In March Kate helped organise a Repair Café as part of the Cambridge Festival - on the hallowed grass by King's College!

Our Spring holiday in May saw us in West Kilbride on the Ayrshire coast, combining family visits with exploration. 

The Mad Professors' ceileidh band met up for their annual June bash at Royal Holloway with Mike on bass. The day before Mike's hip operation we drove to The Stables in Milton Keynes to see Karine Polwart with Dave Milligan. As Karine said: "Pretty dedicated." 

Our annual trip to Folk by the Oak in July had the added potential complication of Mike walking with a crutch after his hip op, but it was fine. The Furrow Collective were brilliant as always and we also enjoyed the Young 'Uns, Darlingside, Seckou Keita. Luckily the weather wasn't ridiculously hot as it was in 2022.

In August we drove to London for Beethoven's 7th Symphony at the Proms. Added bonus was Jess Gillam playing Karl Jenkins' Stravaganza.  Both she and Karl Jenkins (ex Soft Machine!) got huge applause. We also went to the Folk East Festival for the first time. 

In September we had a week in Sheringham, which turned out to have time travelled to the 1940s for the weekend. Strange but fun. Very nice not to have to drive too far to get there though. We also saw Robin Williamson (ex Incredible String Band!) at a gig in London, and had friends to stay.

In October Mike had another hospital visit to check a nodule on his vocal chords. Stressful but it all turned out fine luckily. Everybody in every hospital visit this year has been wonderful.

In November we combined a visit to Glasgow with a family visit and two gigs in Sheffield. A complicated trip involving much detailed planning. Every one of our 12 trains ran on time.

In December we caught the train to London for Kate Rusby's Christmas show (her 19th). Christmas is here!