Priddy Folk Festival originated from a Parent Teachers' Association. Now it is a good sized event with a very friendly vibe and a great selection of bands and singers, over a long weekend interspersed with cider, beer plenty of sunshine and a variety of tasty foods from around the world.
Everyone is friendly and the bands and singers happliy sit amongst the visitors between gigs and play and sing from the grassy areas around the venues. There's the larger tents with well-known names and the smaller club tent which is showcasing new singers. We wandered around happily between all of the areas and found almost exclusively accomplished, entertaining and tuneful singers and musicians.
So here's a few samples...We started with
KTB, singer, songwriter, performing with a small ensemble of accompanying guitarists and violin players. Tuned 'Close enough for folk' and entertaining.
Then it was
Ember, who I particularly wanted to see. The photos from the set were rather blurry, so see instead a moment captured on the grass the next day, with engaging and humourous troubadours Emily and Rebecca playing alongside KTB. Next we rushed to see the end of the Jim Moray set which included some sonically experimental moments. By co-incidence, we met Jim's sister and then Jim the next morning and had a good chat about life on the road, guitars and clever effects.
The final act of the evening was Waterson and Carthy, who are proper folk royalty, playing a strong set and on this occasion complemented on accordian by Tim van Eyken. We enjoyed the set which ended around midnight; an appropriate time to stroll back through the starlit village.
Enlivened by the great skip clearing activities, this weekend will also see me complete my tax forms. In the UK, we have until September before the forms need to be ready - thats if we want the taxman to do the calculations. 
Reggae is good listening on a hot summer day and this one made me smile. Here's Radiohead's "Airbag" done reggae style by Horace Andy.
A slight accumulation of household debris led to the hire of a skip. Some difficult questions, 'What type?', 'What size?' and so forth. I was thinking 'Yellow'. Great ceremony as it arrives on a noisy truck and then 3 hours to fill it with, er, Stuff. Sad bad thing is I need another one to finish the job. 
Lunchtime in Commercial Road, in the East End of London. This is an area well known for Indian shops and many wholesalers. Its between the City of London (global banks) and Canary Wharf (skyscraper corporates).
Please play along...
Another part of last week involved me taking some psychometric tests. You know the sort, answer a lot of seemingly unrelated questions and get classified as a certain type of person. I did a Jungian variant here at rashbre central once before with the Briggs Myers result ENFJ (just redid the test and still ENFJ!)
I havn't been blogging as much this week because I have been quite busy. Last weekend was Priddy, with around 40 bands and singers playing at a fine series of gigs in sunny Somerset. A relaxed weekend with a combination of friends, music, sunshine and cider.
Then back home on Sunday evening, a rapid pit stop and away to a hotel where I was hosting a gathering of people from around the world. We had that calm moment whilst we waited for the first people to arrive and the stories of their varied travels. 
One evening we had a great barbecue in the pleasant evening sunshine and on another day we hired coaches to travel to a nearby riverside restaurant where we could eat well whilst watching the sun set over Windsor Castle and the river Thames.
A friend in the restaurant was on his way back to his family in Lebanon. They normally live in Denmark. Next day he arrived at Beirut airport one hour before it was bombed. We have been texting as he finds his family and drives a rental car out of the country.
An event like the one I describe has its share of late evenings and I'm afraid I was starting at 07:00 each morning with various breakfast sessions but finishing at around 02:00 or even 03:30 one memorable and somewhat riotous evening. 
This week I'm preparing to visit the Priddy Folk festival, which starts tomorrow.
As a Brit with a blog often visited from across the pond, it is an important decison whether to comment about the Fourth of July (I notice it is usually quoted in this European format rather than July 4th). 
