It's been a while!

Hey.  So....I did a silly, silly thing today.  I wanted to make a new vlog, but my camera wasn't playing ball, so...I formatted it....without transfering any of my videos so it's ALL GONE!  There was nothing that great on it to be fair, but it still sucks.

Sooooo....I had a fun bank holiday weekend, I hope y'all did too?  On Saturday I went to a gig at the Southbank Centre.  It was called "In Search of Nic Jones" and it was a group of folk artists celebrating the work of Nic Jones.  He was there, and sang in his final EVER live performance, so it was wicked to be there.  Jim Moray was there too, with his sister, Jackie Oates, who has a stunning voice.  Martin Carthy, Ashely Hutchings and is son Blair Dunlop were playing too, Damien Barber, of "The Demon Barbers" fame, and an American girl called Anais Mitchell, were all there, to honour Nic, who was really influential in the folk movement of, like...the 70s...I think.  To be honest, I don't know much about him, but I was invited by a mate and....JIM MORAY WAS THERE!  And honestly, until that day, I'd never been to a gig and felt that I was experiencing the work of legends.  Even when I've been to see my favourite people play.  But this really was a meeting of legends; people who paved the way for the folk music I adore today, and made it what it is.

I will link you to these artistes' websites at the end of this entry if you want to check them out....it's highly reccommended.

On Sunday I went to my mate's birthday bbq and had EPIC cheesecake! 

On Monday a few of us went to West Wycombe, to a place called The Hell Fire Caves.  Basically, these tunnels were comissioned to be built by Sir Francis Dashwood, with the sole intention of providing work for men during a time of enormous poverty and unemployment.  The tunnels took 100 men six years to cut out of the chalk hillside, and when it was finally done, Dashwood used them as the meeting place for his Hell Fire Club.  This men's only club was patronized (is that the American spelling?) by politicians, doctors, painters, and men of great importance and influence, and so the 300 foot deep tunnels were the perfect secret hide away for men who didn't want their naughty habits to be revealed to the public.  They drank, hung out with prostitutes, dabbled in a bit of Devil worshipping, and, according to some, did a bit of sacrificing of living creatures too...animals or humans?  I don't know.  Anyhoozles, so, I was dead excited about seeing them, because they were featured on Ghost Hunters, which I watch every morning, and I was excited to see if we could find any ghosties and ghoulies....we didn't :( but it was pretty awesome anyway.  I don't want to post up photos, because they're not mine and I don't want to get fined or...whatever, so follow the links HERE and HERE  to find out all about them.

Then we went to the Church on top of the hill the tunnels run under.  It's called The Church of St Lawrence and Golden Ball....St Lawrence after the area's patron saint...Golden Ball after....well...a giant, golden ball on top of the church tower.  We climbed up to the top of the tower, which was TERRIFYING!  I'm not normally bad with heights.  In fact, I normally quite enjoy them, but for some reason, this was awful.  It was sooooo windy, and the platform was small, and the barrier was low, and the door was an open trapdoor.  And the stairs were tiny, and a really, really tight spiral and I hated it!  The views were pretty though.

Then we saw the Dashwood family home, which was lovely.  AMAZING ceilings.  Link HERE

The highlight of the day for me was the Civil war re enactment happening in the mansion's grounds.  We learned how to make cheese, and how blacksmith's used to make their weapons, and loads of people had set up camp and were wandering around in old Civil war era costumes.  And there were loads of loud guns and muskets.  That was a good video...I'm sad I lost that one.  STUPID ME!!!  I love stuff like that, stepping back into history, and almost experiencing it first hand.

Anyway, I'm REALLY dizzy so I'm going to bed now...but I leave you with relevant links to the wonderful musicians I saw on Saturday.  Enjoy

Martin Carthy

Ashley Hutchings

Blair Dunlop

Jim Moray

Jackie Oates

Jim Causley

Anais Mitchell(She has an official site as well, but my computer doesn't seem to like it...Google her)

Damien Barber 

And, of course Nic Jones


Other musicians were there, and awesome, including Nic's son, Joe Jones.  But sadly, I've forgotten their names.  They were all awesome though.


Also worth checking out is Bright Young Folk which lists up coming gigs, reviews, releases, biogs and loads more.  It's neat!


Anyway, dizziness and nausea well and truly setting in now.  I'll vlog soon


Adieu


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