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'Well here I sit in anticipation yet again. The drama has become a perrenial one- where does one find good, rich, full-bodied yet smooth coffee in the UK? I've been scouring the streets & I think I know where I've been going wrong.You need to find the restaurant strip & then look for a place that has modern decor. Those beautiful old English pubs may be ever so quaint & historic, they may have 'atmosphere' dripping off their dingy, smoke-stained walls & swirling 'round your ankles but they cannot make coffee. Ah! Listen to me! Priveleged to walk the famous streets of Oxford- treading in the footsteps of many an intellectual icon, surrounded on all sides by absolutely awestriking architecture & all I can do is complain about the coffee...'
It was back to our busking roots at the Ashbourne Arts Festival & I managed, for the first time in my life, to get badly sunburned in late June. It was then onto Southport to the beautiful home of Chris While & Julie Matthews, who spent a couple of days teaching us the finer points of the Yorkshire & Lancashire dialects. I spent an afternoon rehearsing with them for the recording of their new album & am still feeling a little bit guilty for unwittingly changing one of their new songs from a parisienne ballad to a tango.You should see Julie with her new accordion- like a kid with a new toy! Just one more brief stop over at the Shakespeare Inn to have a last drink with Gilly Darbey & then we were back in London to farewell England. Andy deposited us at Heathrow airport at about 2am & we literally slept at the baggage check-in point until it opened. (Well Greg & Caroline slept- I befriended the guy at the all-night coffee place & enjoyed free cappucinos 'til dawn. A new chapter begins as we touch down in Copenhagen & scramble for the train to Frederikshaven. At first we can't find our place & spend our time being kicked out of our seats by polite but firm ticket-wavers. Rightful positions secured we admire the grandeur of the ubiquitous white windmills & marvel at having to pay $10 AUS for a sandwich on the train. Skagen is incredibly beautiful & the Danish people are extremely polite & hospitable. We had hardly got off the bus before one of the passengers had presented us with a punnet of freshly picked strawberries & another had helped to move our luggage into the waiting car. Our first gig at the festival went down a treat with the locals. The audiences are really into clapping & singing along so we played a lot of fiddle tunes & put a lot of energy into our delivery. They responded with an encore & so much friendliness. Not a bad life really, play a few songs & then have a bunch of good looking scandinavian men throwing their arms around my neck in order to have their picture taken with me! The second gig was at the much larger harbourside stage & the reaction was equally good, this time we earned a standing ovation. Notable was Greg & Caroline's new contribution to the covers interlude in '30 seconds of Happiness'. They had managed to learn a danish folk song & had the whole crowd singing AND swaying in time! We were then whisked off to take part in what they call the ceilidh- which was more of a informal variety concert where each invited guest performs two songs. The bands are encouraged to jam with each other & they even provide a whole row of extra vocal mikes for anyone who wants to sing along. We got the members of the other Aussie band 'Snake Gully' up on The Porch Set & then had the entire crowd singing along to 'One Love'. Soon we had a whole onstage chorus as well as an amazing Danish drummer from a band called 'Instinkt'.
Enough namby pamby art talk. We saw many a fine young scandinavian instrumentalist but none finer than the 5 Danes that made up 'Instinkt'. All of them sang & danced. They had an incredibly accomplished female rhythm section of drum-kit, percussion & both electric & acoustic bass. In front was a powerhouse triple fiddle onslaught delivering some beautifully arranged music. One fiddler could dance, sing & play at the same time. Another played a stunning array of different whistles & unusual intruments like the hurdy gurdy & jaw-harp. The biggest treat of their show however was when their drummer stepped out from the kit & began to sing a traditional Danish song with the most haunting & unearthly voice I've ever heard. All 3 of us were roused to our feet yelling ourselves hoarse by the end of the show & spent the rest of the night backstage in their company. They introduced me to a very interesting band custom- drinking shots of vodka & a very strange substance (tasting like a combination of licquorice & pepper if you can possibly imagine it) out of small stoppered test-tubes. Let me tell you, those things look very small & innocent but it doesn't take too many... Well all good festivals come to an end & soon we had to hand in our hired bicycles & bid Skagen goodbye. I will always remember fondly the kindness of Rolf the hostel owner who always turned a blind eye to Jigzag's breakfast squirreling habits (Ohhh that fresh bread! I could eat it all day- & I did!), the jam I had on that old concrete bunker on the beach with Nick the Iranian restauranteur & Maria from Copenhagen while the sun went down at 11pm at night(!!!), the shared pasta & conversation with Daniel from Barcelona & the great singing sessions I had with a bunch of crazy Dutch guys called 'Rolling Home'. All that was left now was to fill an afternoon being tourists in Copenhagen. Tivoli Gardens was chosen & our final impressions of Denmark were fuelled by a collage of brightly coloured & beautifully manicured gardens, circus performers & the squeals of children being flung around on rollercoasters.
There you have it, & congratulations for making it
through to the end. 'Til I write again remember handy
hint #9. Never try sarcasm when conversing with a
Scandanavian. |
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A new chapter begins as we leave the endless
stairwells of the tube behind & take possession of our
lovely little Renault hire car & hit the M4 in search
of greener pastures. In particular the green pastures
of Derbyshire & the crooked house of friends Jay
Turner & Cath Mundy. More Jane Austen countryside &
English hospitality before we are once again on the
road. This time we are on a mission to surprise some
other dear friends James Fagan & Nancy Kerr who are
performing at a folk club in Oxford. The only address
we have- Port Mahon, St Clements, Oxford. Now they
aren't really big on precise addresses over here.
Numbering things only seems to happen sporadically &
people are more likely to have a title for a place
that becomes a more intrinsic part of the address.
They also don't mind repeating the names of suburbs
only distinguishing them by use of words like 'Upper',
'Lower' 'Greater' & 'Little'. So was Port Mahon the
name of the place?, the street? The suburb. Thankfully
it turned out to be a pub in St Clements street & pubs
never modestly hide their titles under a bushel in
England. There is always the obligatory hanging sign
with appropriate hand painted illustration.(My
favourite was called 'The Hurt Arms', no joke!!!) The
next task I undertook was to find the decent cappucino
which had thus far evaded me in London. Surely a
university town like Oxford could manage a humble
expresso? Here's an extract from my travel diary:
Anyhow, after being satisfied by my first decent
cuppa, successfully surprising our comrades &
hijacking the stage for another floor spot, we retired
back to Derbyshire for another days worth of walking &
writing for me, boy/industry talk for Greg & Jay &
violin duets for Cathy & Caroline. (Well there was
also the famous amp hire incident in Chesterfield
where after an ill-chosen parking spot resulted in us
finding our hire car fenced in by pallets of bricks.
We very quickly noticed the ill-concealed mirth of
some bored fork-lift drivers nearby...)
I think I understand that ol' cliched thing about travel changing
you. There is something about watching a bunch of humans in a different
setting with different customs & habits but stillbeing human
all the same. You hold your worth & your insignificance in the
palm of your hand simultaneously. You also start to understand how
huge this world is & how Australia is just a very big small
town. Here in Europe you can travel less than 15km & they not
only speak a different accent but an entirely different language!
I stood at Grenen point, (the pointy bit at the top of Denmark,
now go on... get a map out & have a look. What did you expect?
A jpeg??) & stood with one foot in each sea- the Skagerrat &
the Kattegat. They are quite different. The Kattegat is sheltered
& can be calm whilst the North sea is raging. Standing there
on
the sandbar where they meet is guaranteed to give you
a sense of the grand scale of God's handiwork. It's
also a surefire way of getting splashed in the groin!
there is a different kind of light here in the Northern hemisphere.
Softer, yet still giving the lanscape a luminosity that is soothing
to witness. No wonder so many painters have made a pilgrimmage to
capture it on canvas. I wondered around the Skagen Museum one afternoon
& lost track of time- gently enfolded in lovingly rendered stories
of people, landscape & light. No words could provoke the depth
of feeling I experienced from standing in front of these paintings
so I won't rave on any further except to say don't forget about
treating yourself to witnessing beautiful art as much as you can.
It really does revive something within that I can't explain.
Just two days remained before we left for Canada &
where I now sit typing. They were spent in a far more
contemplative manner at Sue's flat in London all
except for one excursion to play for the children of
The Dawmouse Montessori Nursery School. What a gig! A crowd that
danced & sang along to "Wood, wood, wood Guita-ar"
& I even got a kiss on the cheek from a
handsome young 4 year old who was mightily impressed
by our lying on the floor trick in Miserlou. |
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