I was away this weekend apple picking, it involves picking apples (duh), and pressing them for juice, possibly for cider. That's the official line. It also involves lots of chilling out, music sessions and of course, the camp fire. We managed to come away with a few bottles of juice for making cider with, but my biggest sense of achievement was that fact that I have put to use some of the knowledge I have gleaned from TV.

Sunday morning, whilst I was scratting apples, I noticed Pip getting the fire going again. I suddenly remembered Ray Mears talking about using the hot embers in the middle of the ash to start a fire up again. I duly went and found some dry grass, built up the main fire using some 1/2 burned bits (I remembered they light well), and found a hot ember. I made the nest of grass in my hand, popped in the ember, closed it all up and started blowing. Low and behold, smoke, then some more, then more, then warm hands, then FLAMES!!!! . It took some coaxing but I managed to get the main fire going. I was pleased with myself. See, TV *is* good

I went out again tonight with the scope, the first clear night for a while. I failed to get most of the things I'd planned on looking at, failed to find M51 and failed to find M33. I gave up and decided to find the easiest thing out there, M31. I eventually found it. It's not hard, it's huge, but I managed to make a meal of it. I blame the fact that it's been so long since I got out there with my scope . I did manage to find NGC 884 which was not on my list, I just noticed a lightish patch in the sky and thought 'whats that', so took a look. Then I checked my maps and found out what it was

Wow...

I've never been to IVFDF before, but having just got back from this years, I think I'll be going again. I had a *fantastic weekend*.

I arrived Friday in time to go to the bar with a couple of people from Rag morris before the main event kicked off. Friday nights ceilidh was with GloryStrokes 'Possibly the world's only traditional english metalcore dance band'. I've never heard them live before, it has to be said, they rock!!!!. It was an amazing evening. Not being very fit, and having had, erm, several pints, I was sweating buckets, and trying not to die of a heart attack like the old man I felt . Then it was back to our accommodation for a late night session.

Saturday I was out fiddling for Rag until 3ish, a good mix of sides, dancing and, it being morris, beer. After we had got changed and organised a group of us went off to a gig with 'Crucible' and 'Spiers and Boden' which I enjoyed. I wasn't sure about it in advance, but some of the other Rag people said good things, and they were right.. Another ceilidh Saturday evening. Not such a lively band this time, but none the less good. Being a little slower I was able to not feel quite so old. I must work on that . After that there was a gig by The Grinders' Misfortune Society. They were similar to GloryStrokes, but just a gig this time. Then off to the late night session until not much before the sun came up.

Sunday was very leisurely. There were a couple of workshops I wanted to go to, but by the time we had crawled out of our sleeping bags, got organised, and had a fry up, it was too late. We made it to the survivors ceilidh, some people were decidedly flagging by this point . It was a much slower affair, but good fun again.

I bought the GloryStrokes CD 'Industrial Revolution' and played it very loud in the car on the way home, I love it. It did make me realise that driving and stomping to the beat don't really work well together though

A fantastic weekend with a really great bunch of people.

Time for some sleep now I think

I went to the Cheltenham Folk Festival on Saturday. I was out fiddling for a while, it was very cold, but I got to see some people I hadn't for a while. In the evening I went with my sister and her boyfriend to the ceilidh. They were supposed to meet up with a group of friends in a pub before hand, but these things don't quite go to plan, so we found a cheap pub and started drinking. We headed for the ceilidh and they met up and introduced me. Fantastic group of people. They made me feel like one of the crowd. It's one of the warmest welcomes I've had by strangers. I was soon dancing with some nice young ladies (I hope their toes recovered). It's a long time since I've had that much fun. The band (random) were brilliant, nice lively music, it was clear they were having fun too, so I bought their CD.

On the Sunday I went out and fiddled for the group, and seem to have been adopted as a remote member. So I'm now off to IVFDF to meet up again. There are 2 ceilidhs that weekend, and one of the bands sounds quite interesting. I've listened to some samples on their website, a metal ceilidh band. Didn't think I'd ever hear those words together, but it does seem to work . I have realised this could be an expensive hobby though. My grandparents gave me a little money to help pay for fuel, and it seems that between the 4 of us in the round it all got drunk (the money was drunk, but I was stone cold sober, honest)

Looking forward to seeing the Raggies more often.

I went down to my grandparents last wednesday. I've not seen them for a while, I was supposed to go down over christmas, but I was ill so didn't make it.

Granddad has been quite ill recently, and was in hospital when I spoke to my dad just a few days before. I was pleased to see that he was back home again when I was down. He's got lots of things wrong, but his mind is working well and he seemed to enjoy having me down to visit.

I also saw some of the other people I meant to see at the new year.

I have been worried for a few days that the soluble stitches in my right hand tooth whole had not dissolved. My tongue has been playing with the little bits that were dangling out for a few days, without thinking about it. This evening I noticed the ends were longer, my tongue was playing with the end when the whole twinged. I then played some more, it hurt more, but it's now out. No more stitches. It is a dull ache, but feels nice some how. Hopefully things like yawning will not hurt so much now

I had an 'accident' with ebay, and ordered a Zoom H4 from the US, should be here late this week or early next week. Then I found out today that my dad has bought the Boss Micro BR for himself. Guess we will get to compare them

I'm also investigating the Incredibow as a prospective purchase after my birthday, in June.

Since I've been thinking about recording, I've wondered how to get the sound in to a computer. Having done some research over a couple of months I came to the following list of options. Some are more expensive that others, but they are normally more feature rich.
Alesis multimix 8: Nice, but only outputs one channel over USB, it's a mixer, not a multi channel recorder, but hey, that's ok.
Boss Micro BR: Doesn't directly interface with the computer, so you have to record, then transfer. Would be good for recording pub sessions so I can learn tunes too though.
M-Audio Fast Track USB: This looks good for recording to the laptop.
M-Audio JamLab: Cheap. This is good value for recording a single channel.
Line 6 Toneport GX: Another single channel recorder, slightly higher quality sound (sample rate) than the JamLab
Behringer UCG102: This is the cheapest of the single channel USB sound interfaces, also the lowest sound quality doing 16bit 44khz only.
Zoom H4: This looks like our winner. It's much more expensive that the UC102 for example, but it acts as a mutli channel recorder with built in mics for getting those pub sessions in a state where I can learn the tunes, it also works as a USB audio interface so I can record direct to the laptop.

Now I just need to not spend my christmas money on getting the heating working and I can go get one

My parents got me an L.R. Baggs pickup for my violin for christmas, combined with their GigPro preamp, and a couple of equaliser and effects peddles, I attempted to do some recording a couple of weekends ago. It took me a while to get something in that wasn't completely distorted. Laptop mic in socket is not the thing to use.

I downloaded some extra effects for audacity including a much larger equaliser. Using this post on the fiddle forums I managed to improve the sound somewhat. I still need to do a proper recording. One where I've not already been playing a while, one where I play well(ish), and one where the raw recording produces a clean sound, and then I can try different things again, and even let one of my recordings in to the real world.

The left hand side wound has bits of flesh flapping around, still attached to my cheek. It's nice. The right hand side is still all closed up. I'm off the pain killers, although things are uncomfortable still, they are not painful most of the time. I had some toast today, and chewing is becoming possible, so I might be able to have more options now.