Christmas & New Year Greetings

We hope you have all had a great Christmas and send best wishes for the New Year from all of us at Tales from Under Blackhill. For the second Christmas running we got out in the snow and for the second time I have decided to build a bigger toboggan. That must be job 3021 on my list of things to do!

Things have been rather too quiet on the blog posting front but with a bit of luck there might be a bit more coming through in 2011. I think the General Election postings probably took up more energy than at first thought although they proved the most popular political articles in the collection. Many students made use of the series on 'Resolving a Hung Parliament' and I suspect there will be many issues which will spin off from the present political settlement. Should we really be moving towards 5 year fixed Parliaments etc? And, of course, we have a referendum on the voting system coming up as well as a Royal Wedding. We have already been invited back by our old neighbours in Worcester to join in their street party!

You will see that there will be more reports and reviews on folk music matters including a ‘Memories’ series looking back at musical trends in the past. The first of these can be seen on the Memories of the Troubadour posting. It is also clear that articles which recount earlier times are popular such as those on cycling in the 1950's, so we hope to bring you a few more of these as well as the occasional book review and reviews of events.

Mary Horesh is still an editor and occasional contributor and is currently in the middle of a re-location to London. She is still a keen environmental campaigner with special reference to farming and food. She is currently a member of the Friends of the Earth Advisory Committee on Food and Bio-diversity. Should you be moving to either Birmingham or London yourself and need some contacts @maryhoresh might be a useful source.

Sian & I continue to be members of Birmingham Friends of the Earth and try to help out from a distance and I try to get to Management Committee meetings, weather permitting.

Sian and I have been very involved with FolkWorkshops which has developed very quickly in recent months due to the great enthusiasm of those involved. We have no idea where it is all leading save to say that we are gradually building up our network with the intention of bringing more live folk music to south west Herefordshire and making sure we do not overlook events which we could car share to attend.

Mary has given us a years membership of the English Folk Dance and Song Society so we will be inundated with lots of information. We are looking forward to our next trip to London so we can spend some time in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House and possibly attend a ceilidh.

An ambition in FolkWorkshops is to develop an expertise in harmony singing and our rehearsals for the Carols at the Crown Inn session at Longtown before Christmas shows that we are on the way. The key is that our meetings should continue to be an enjoyable joint effort and in this spirit new musicians and singers are most welcome.

The trouble is trying to fit everything in, not only in our own lives, but in among the many events that get organised up here in these beautiful hills. You will not catch us complaining about that however as we are firm believers in 'community' and whatever quibbles the sociologists might have in defining it, we definitely know it when we see it!

Looking forward to your company in a peaceful 2011,

Dacier, Sian and Mary