Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Folk music, Tablet, Scottish country dancing

It's been a while since the last post. I had wanted to post right after seeing Malinky perform at a local folk club on Sept 30, but events happened, one day turned into three, then a week, etc. Finally, I've spent more than a week battling illness; fortunately it is not the dreaded H1N1 but it did knock me about quite a bit.

Anyway, my planned posts were about the show, tablet, and Scottish country dancing. So I will combine the three and go for it.

First up: Malinky. They performed in Rollinsford, NH a week after the Highland Games @ Loon Mt., in Lincoln, NH. I attended the show, Jacqueline was unable to and very disappointed that she missed such a brilliant performance. They performed many tunes from their Flower and Iron CD, and also performed, at request, The Wild Geese/Norland Wind. Here's a link to Youtube and that particular song, which is one of my favorites. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kvSeiUGvg&feature=related

At the show I asked if they would be willing to taste-test, and approve or not, a batch of tablet that my wife made. She (we) hope to sell it in our area, and who knows where that will lead. Well they were willing to taste it and pronounced it very good. Here is a link to the front-page, and their endorsement of the product, with a picture, on our website.
http://www.bluebellbuttertabletofmaine.com/
http://www.bluebellbuttertabletofmaine.com/bbbt/endorsement.html

Finally, one of the things my wife and I wanted to do for a long time was learn to dance. We took ballroom lessons but the end result was not as we had hoped. Much of that is my "fault" as I am not a particularly good dance leader; what should be finesse most of the time devolves into my dragging her around the dance floor. Fortunately we decided to learn Scottish country dancing and a few weeks ago took our first lesson. It's great and we highly recommend it for the sheer fun of the group experience. I too found it to be more to my liking than ballroom style dancing; perhaps, probably, because of the Scottish blood flowing in my veins. Later this month the group will be holding an 18th century dance, complete with many folks wearing appropriate costume, and I plan on taking some pictures and posting them to the blog.

Meanwhile, slainte !!!!