Greetings from Joy & Eric & the Foxley tribe. We will soon be celebrating the end of the old year 2008 with a Solstice show, and welcoming the new year 2009 with a mumming play – the season has come upon us far too quickly!
Well, at our age, I suppose the main news must be that we’re still both here! “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”, as they say! We are now members of “Nottingham Old Codgers” (“Elders”) but decline their offer of coach trips to Bingo sessions at Skegness.
But what have we achieved this year? And is any of that worth reporting? The same as last year!
Summer holiday: Joy and I had our usual camping trip, this time based round western France down at Bordeaux and the Atlantic coast below there. Plenty of walking and cycling – one day we had chosen a VTT (mountain bike) trail recommended as a “very easy family route”, it involved lifting the bikes over trees & rocks, fording streams ... tough families these Frenchies. And a bit of “parapente” for Eric, which is hang gliding under a parachute. And at the end of the holiday, a wonderful day with friends André & Liliane celebrating the “passage” of the Tour de France past their shop / house. In the rain between the cavalcade & the riders Eric entertained the “crowds” (lots of old dears from the local pensioners home et al) by playing in the road with the accordion kept dry under bicycle cape. Then Breton cider and saussice and galettes, a wonderful day!
Trips by air to Germany in June & November to see the darlings there, the 16 year-old twins are growing outrageously adult and winning one of their volleyball leagues (they’re in at least 3 teams), while Suzi (13) is brilliant on the piano.
Trips down south to see Jean & Rory, and to join in some of their many dancing & playing activities, and to help on their 3 allotments from time to time, and to get shattered trying to keep up with Rory on his bike.
Trips to Kenilworth to see Sean Jenna Anita & Hamish. We’ve attended a session of Sean’s football training (all in proper kit with his name and number on) and through that Eric attended his first ever football match (Championship, Coventry versus Forest, a 2-2 draw). We’ve also attended a session of Jenna’s violin class – she has lessons at school every week, then once a month all Warwickshire Suzuki strings pupils get together and have a wonderful time enjoying playing. Jenna has played fiddle in our band several times this year, that’s just great. Sean is learning electric guitar, he joins in the gentler ones.
We went with a few morris & cloggies to the Swanage Folk Festival. We camped, it was gales and driving heavy rain most of the time – so that’s why we don’t camp in England! But we managed some dancing and playing in the town for the festival, with the help of renegade members Helen & Steve who live near there to fill out our numbers. We ignored much of the festival and had absolutely super music and singing sessions in the camp site bar/restaurant/socialising room, some of the best sessions ever. The external gales and rain helped the internal warmth!
As usual our weekly countryside walking has clocked up about 300km over the year, and if you add together all the upward bits you get to about 6000 metres of climbing, that’s over half the height of Mount Sagarmatha (Everest)! And my solo cycling is mostly longer rides now (40km rather than 20), weather and punctures permitting, longer because it’s taking longer for my lungs to get working nowadays.
The band has plenty of bookings – too many in September (some weeks we had 3 bookings) with harvest suppers & student welcomes, but quiet periods at other times of year.
Our monthly session of folk singing for kids goes well, the children have very favourite songs. And we now have a monthly singing & playing session in a pub in Nottingham, it’s wonderful how “singing friendly” pubs have become since smoking was banned!
Our friend Bisakha ran a conference at Liverpool on “Heritage viewed through dance”. The speakers were an amazing collection of OBEs and MBEs, impressive how they can waffle on without saying anything concrete, I wish I had that skill. As one of the conference workshops Joy & I taught some English sword dancing to local school children, and after the final closing session we got all the unsuspecting speakers and participants up to dance “Circassian Circle”. The elite talked about dance but rarely did it – we thought it our duty to remedy their failing! Unfortunately we dragged the video man into the dance as well, so there’s no record of it on the conference DVD! [But it’s on the conference web site which I look after!]
Steve who came to lodge in our hayloft temporarily in July 2006 did finally leave at the beginning of April 2008! We now have a spare bed-sit if anyone wants it – your own loo & washbasin, above the pottery (warm when the kiln is fired) (see photos of some of this year's pots and of my Green Man themed plates and platters), half a ton of clay to play with, ideal for any budding artist!
Your Christmas card with instructions is on our home page here.
Our preferred e-mail is both@joy-and-eric.org.uk (but older addresses will still reach us). Use www.joy-and-eric.org.uk for the website, where you will find photos of all the above adventures, and a better form of this letter. Phone is 0115 9786858 (now with answerphone, we’re in the 21st century), snail-mail is 31 Greenfield Street, Dunkirk, Nottingham NG7 2JN, UK
Tuesday 9 December, 2008 12:15
