….and so then, to an end it cometh… the summer of 2006 spent in Ireland…. wot a grand time was had… but in the same breath as the the talk of endings, so too must there be the talk now of the countless beginnings begun. new friends varied and vast in their ways walk their paths onward too in the knowing that we’ll meet again… the days after the festival were slow… recuperating from a long week… skint to the cent, content-ish in a zone of hibernation not unlike a Skellig island monk… rain fell making the Kinard beach seem more distant than america… i could envisage what a Dingle winter could do to a soul were one not careful to keep it fresh, so the leaving to the southern hemisphere spring time taunts me not…

 Jonny got back from England and we played a few final gigs around the penninsula.. the crew kept lending their ears so we’d play and play, as vivid n vital as we could… riffs and flights of notes scattering out into the universe, strings twisting and turning beneath fingers like churning oceans, doctor Jon with his sonic degree and i with my apprentices hammer & anvil… tinkering away… stomping, sock footed, on a box with a microphone in it, my  mangled Maton whose short life has been hard is protesting like a tired old horse and my one solitary Honer harmonica, beaten, covered in candle wax from somewhere sometime ago… C harp… so you can play a million songs in A-minor and throw in a note or two from the rack as an aural suprise. we grasp out at an atmosphere.. try and pull it from another realm and lay it down sweet on the ears of the gathered… often it works, ’specially if the right collection of ears are in the place… kinda like surfing if you’ve got the right waves…

 Steve’s playin conga drinkin red wine…Ted got back from cork for the gig just… as i text him he shows there at the zone cool as you please after a mental wedding in cork the nite before, thumping til dawn… cool as you please.. the ginger beer he brews rocks and Dingle was just about to run dry… that wouldn’t be right… Becs is there groovin’, we could all feel the heat from Honsa’s pizza oven… so the fan got turned on to give us that desert breeze… Elaine and Columbe, the blue zone saints makin sure every one was chilled… Des holding up the bar surveyinn the serene… Patrick sometimes frantic freakin’ cos we play too late… but what do you do when the gathered are hollerin for more and Elaines got that ‘he can’t sack me’ grin.. so on we thrash, Mark ‘mr crickard’ has joined us now we launch into a medley of  A minor classics dedicating one to Danielle who had left for Dublin… Tais gyrated gently on the dance floor her crutches leaning on a chair… even Mo showed, we’d been listening to her electronica album since i gave it to my mate for his birthday and she sang happy birthday again, full flite… i saw Myles and edain from the corner of my eye with smiles and smiles and the Mattster and Troina, the mischievious fairiie whose name i still can’t spell…. Matt drives a massif old transit that he bought over from England, that got yours truly to a coupla gigs over the last few weeks and he’s got some nice spanish wines goin’ on too dontcha know? Jamie and the surfin’ crew show from a hard day in the waves teachin’ folks how to catch waves for the riding… Ilaria arrives with a magic in tow that you can’t put your finger on… and Tracey smiles too… Scott showed up haggard from drinkin’ and fighting with Rian all the night previous at the birthday bash that saw through to the dawn and left a lounge like a bombed out baghdad street… the kitchen was fishbones, potatoes and huge scraped clean curry pots and a hundred empty wine bottles, JD and Jamesons had been our friends as the African music had played and the gathered had swayed…

 aaaah these are the days…

 D

 Hammersmith, London