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We were honoured by another terrific night at the Cambridge Folk Club. We shared the bill with the extremely talented Richard Brown and Carl Hogsden, and the Marina Florance band. Marina played with four others and delivered a very beautiful, entertaining and upbeat session.

I am very pleased to report that our 50 minute set was very well received and there were strong calls for an encore at the end. We introduced two new songs into the set. The first was Broken in the Past - a homage to the suffering of refugees now and through the ages, which uses the tune from the traditional French Canadian song Le Vieux Cheval, first heard by the magnificent Le Vent du Nord, but with words penned by myself. The second was Nellie Torrence and Jeannie Waldie - a tale of the first known true body snatchers in Edinburgh, which is a na-mara original. Having remembered the words (! - through a lot of private rehearsal), both songs seemed to go down well.

We played some of our better known song, including When I Took my Horse to Water, and even had some in the audience singing it along with us - a great feeling.

We had a lot of very good feedback at the end of the night and were still talking as the last of the chairs were being cleared away. We were also very pleased to hear that Cambridge will be offering us a full booking in 2010. This is very generous - they have supported and encouraged us all the way through from when we turned up a long time ago to do two songs, then to do 20 minutes, then a couple of showcases, then to share the bill last night and, now, to give us a full slot! And, of course, they have asked us to play the Folk Club tent at the Cambridge Folk Festival which we are over the moon about.

The drive home flew by and, not drinking before we play, and the bar being shut by the time we had finished, I had a self-congratulatory bottle of beer when I got in. But, I was still home before my daughter, who came in and we had a nice long chat while I quaffed my Innes & Gunn beer (highly recommended!!)

What can I say! This was an incredibly welcoming and friendly club. Carrie had liaised with Rob over a full gig for us - and, despite being from a neighbouring town we were a new act for them.

From the very first moment, club members were happy to come up and talk guitars, guest and musical preferences. We played in a small hall next to the Pump Rooms and it was very cosily laid out for a fairly rudimentary hall - soon to be given a facelift. The bar served excellent beer and, by the time we were due to go on, there was around 40+ in the audience. We heard some excellent floor singers and had everything from an excellent I am a Wee Weaver (from one of the member of the excellent Warp and Weft), through to a super Aria from Handel and wonderful renditions of a David Bowie and a Matt Maginn song. We were boosted as our friends Ruth and Dave arrived to support us.

If I say so myself, we played really well. We were focused, we were really enjoying playing and this clearly transferred to the audience who were extremely appreciative throughout. We were brave enough to through Les Larmes Aux Yeux in in a second half set, and probably did our best ever performance of Billy Don't You Weep for Me and the Asturian danzas. Very pleasingly, we were asked to do a double encore.

We were overwhelmed by the kind words after the show and sold a considerable number of CDs. When someone compliments you on taking them on 'a musical and educational journey', it really means a lot. We work hard to get things right, and to have listeners compliment the musicality is so rewarding.

Naturally, we were buzzing by the time we left and, on getting home, needed a decent bottle of Innes and Gunn beer before settling down for bed.

We very much hope the Watford Folk Club thrives - it certainly deserves to with such friendly and dedicated people - and are as keen as mustard to return.

This was a voyage of discovery outside our normal 'catchment'. We had long wanted to visit Dartford Folk Club and contacted them to see if we could do a singers spot. It was a long way to go to play a couple of numbers - but it was a good night out.

Home from work, quick munch of a sarnie or two and off round the M25. We arrived in good time to hear a Welsh band Bare Bones, who were very good. Then we did the Breton sea shanty, Three Matelots, followed by The Flower of Magherally. We played well, but tuning was a slight issue, and then the main act, Harvey Andrews, came on.

With a 6.00am getting up for work the next morning looming, Rob and I humbly made our excuses in the break and left before the second half began. A number of people were very complimentary about our playing, as we made our way out - which was very nice.

Then homeski with a can of Polish lager (ZUBR) for me in the passenger seat! (Rob naturally kept his can of WARKA for when he got home.)

We found Dartford a very friendly and welcoming club and it was obvious why they had won Folk Club of the Year 2008 - very well organised and wonderfully supported. We certainly aim to keep in contact and hope they might find a longer slot for us some time in the future.

In line with our interest of visiting new clubs, Rob and I attended a singer’s night at the Waltham Abbey Folk Club. Jan Ayres, who runs this very friendly club, very kindly allowed us to double up and do a couple of numbers each round in what was a very talented room of singers and players. Resident duo Blue Harbour performed some excellent bluesy material, and there was some great fiddle music, excellent accordion playing and some very funny banter all night.

As Rob and I have been travelling in recent weeks, we have been talking a lot about the need for us to get back into the studio and do a third CD. We are acutely aware that the two CDs we currently have cover only a modest proportion of our current repertoire. I have now invested in some Cubase software and am slowly beginning to master it – and this might liberate us from making too much call on friends in St Albans and Suffolk. But, it will take some considerable time to master this complex software to a level that we could realistically make a quality recording – even if I have some decent mikes, etc. So, we are still working on what best to do. The real problem is, of course with full time ‘day jobs’ is simply finding the time. We are both active family guys as well as professionals in our own field, with jobs that require a fair amount of travel – so finding two or three days (or preferably a lot more) to do a recording session justice, is going to be hard.

The night after Bury St Edmonds, Rob and I were back on our travels with friends Tam Lin, to play The Headgate Theatre in Colchester and support Alan Prosser from The Oysterband – nice fella, and another wonderful guitarist .

Then, a few days later, we were back with Alan and Sue Hewson from Tam Lin to start the night as na-mara at Alan and Sue’s club in Baldock, and finish the evening as Tam Lin. This was a full night with plenty of singers in for the evening. Our good friend and excellent performer Malcolm Hobbs was there, and we managed to get a copy of his new CD ‘In for a Penny’, check it out!

With it being St Patrick’s night, Rob and I stayed to Irish material throughout – which is rather unusual for us as we roam across the British Isles and placed further afield usually.

Later that week we had two St Patrick’s night gigs – one in a pub in Little Wymondley in north Hertfordshire (? Or is it south Beds?), and a big gig down on the south coast at Selsey, where, with Tam Lin we supported the blues band The Commitments – great fun and, again, really nice people.

So, a pretty exhausting round of ‘gigging’ but we wouldn’t trade it for the world. What fun we have had over recent weeks.

I told you we were busy and so it was home from work early, soggy Morrisons sarnie snaffled in the car, a hell for leather drive across to Bury St Edmonds, three times round the one way system and into the club for a sound check just in time. Rob and I just love visiting new clubs. The previous night had been the intimate atmosphere of a front parlour, with the audience right up close and playing acoustically; tonight was totally different – a large room, c80-90 in the audience and a real pukka p.a. system, with a quality sound technician helping us out.

We were supporting the Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley – two musicians I was not familiar with, but I won’t now forget. Setting aside what a nice pair of blokes they were, very approachable and open to both of us, they were both very funny and (more importantly) very impressive and entertaining musicians. What I would pay for a teaching session with Denny - who is one of the best Irish guitar players I have ever seen. The fact that they hadn’t played prior to this night for some considerable time, just shows how good they are. They played a wide variety of music, including a wonderful rendition of a Voice Squad song The Sheepstealers.

Terry in his ‘Waffle’ (his term not mine) reviewed the night recently and Rob and I are overwhelmed by his kind comments on our performance which read “Support by The Duo Na-Mara was indeed quite lovely. Their performance nicely blended with the main act. These guys are really going to make a mark in the folk world and deserve to have success in clubs and festivals.” Terry (and all at The Milkmaid, who helped us and were so welcoming on the night), many thanks!! 

The start of the busy season! Of course, with our friends at Tam Lin, we get a lot of bookings around the time of St Patrick’s Day. With our own bookings, it means that Rob and I have a couple of weeks with 3 nights each week playing – just like proper pros eh!

Jan Strapp at Redbourn Folk Club, gave us the chance to support George Papavgeris, at the new venue for the club, The Hollybush pub in Redbourn. I think the club used to be there some years ago, and they have now gone back. This is a very intimate club in an outhouse from the pub – so it is cosy and not affected by pub noise.

It was also the chance for us to meet with George Papavgeris who is clearly a legend in this North London/Herts area , but was someone whose music we had not heard before. Larger than life, George is a hell of a presence and, on saying goodbye to him at the end of the evening he was very kind to say how much our song ‘Solo Por Tres Meses’ had affected him.

Jan also seems to have enjoyed the evening because she has promised us a ‘full spot’ at Redbourn in 2010. This is a real honour and thanks to Jan for that. Jan was kind enough to tell us that we “just get better and better” – we couldn’t hope for a nicer comment because this is absolutely our aim.

As we have said elsewhere in this blog, Reading Folk Club has been incredibly generous to us over the years. They were the first to give us any sizeable slot on a folk evening, the first to give us a ‘full booking’ and the first to give us a second full booking.

So, after a January of working on some new material and getting ourselves properly rested, then properly rehearsed, we were very much looking forward to the evening – at Readifolk’s new venue, The RISC Centre in London Street in the centre of Reading (which is the third venue we have played at, and very much the nicest.) The Reading hosts were as welcoming as ever. Sadly, the appalling weather in the previous week and on the evening itself meant that the audience was lower than they usually manage.

We had some excellent floor acts on before us – including some excellent French songs and tunes. When Rob and I started our ‘project’ of taking French and Breton songs and making them more accessible to an English speaking audience, we thought we would be pretty much alone in this – but far from it. There are many players playing French tunes and even performing French songs.

We took the opportunity to introduce two more new songs to our repertoire, developed over the Christmas and New Year period. Of late, I have become very enamoured of the French Canadian band Le Vent du Nord (if you haven’t heard them, track them down!!) and I have translated their song Les Larmes Aux Yeux – which has a wonderful but tricky instrumental tune embedded in it, written by the superb Scottish fiddler Fiona Cuthill. Rob, in his inimitable challenging style felt that we definitely needed one of the verses sung in French – so, this is what we have done. So, this is a tricksy, full on, number requiring total concentration – but the song and the tune are great – and the Reading audience were very appreciative.

The other song we introduced was a song that I have been working on for a long while but really only got a grip on when it was converted over into a DADGAD version; it is The Child Mother - which is a translation of a La Bamboche song sung by Evelyne Girardon. In our quest for variation in the act, we always try and vary the combinations of instruments we play, and try and get different sounds. In this particular song, I play my Taylor in DADGAD, and Rob drinks a pint of lager – yes, it’s me on ‘me tod’. Nice to say then, that the Readifolk audience really appreciated this somewhat harrowing song about a girl who becomes pregnant and, in desperation, kills her newborn and is then discovered.

Thanks to all at Readifolk for a lovely evening and such a warm welcome. We very much hope to be back.