I'm still here!

Yikes it’s been a while, sorry folks. The spring tour has finally wound down and it was a lot of fun. The Q&A sessions were great and I enjoyed the experience of trying to deal with all your enquiries! All the ‘ordinary’ shows in between were a blast as well and you are sure coming out in force to support the music right now..thank you. The tour ended last week in Edinburgh and Belfast, two great cities.Extra curriculum activities based around those shows happened thanks to George Lowden and Dick Gaughan. On the drive up to Scotland I mentioned that I hadn’t seen Dick since we shared a stage in Canada at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and reminded myself that I must try and get in touch. Two hours later he comes bounding in to my sound check having found out I was playing an hour or so before! So we hung out and shared stuff the way only two miserable Celtic warriors can. In Belfast I went down to George Lowden’s guitar factory and George gave us the royal tour..very impressive and a lot of beautiful instruments to fall in love with. Caught the ferry over to Belfast from Stranraer. Much prefer catching boats than planes. Though cars have taken me through most of the miles and predominantly in the right direction except for after the Hereford show, late night, when Tom Tom decided to take me on a path that had me travelling the wrong way up a dual carriageway! I contacted them to complain and was asked if I had updated my maps recently. I pointed out that the dual carriage way had been there for at least 30 years and therefore they might have got it right in the first place. The case continues.Right now we are trying to get my work visa renewed in the USA to tour with Ani DiFranco in June. It’s a ridiculous and expensive process but has to be done in order to play there. I’m so looking forward to those dates. Of all the artists I have opened for in the last 25 years, none impress me quite like Ani does. On many levels she is special and it will be some trip I’m sure. And I will get to sing ‘Vegas’ in Vegas! I’m spending a reasonable amount of time in the studio right now recording old stuff again. Some songs have changed so much and I want to try and get them down as they are now and see what we get. I have also been writing some new material and catching up with a lot of stuff that has to wait when I’m on the road.Life bundles along. Things are going well I know and one has so much to be grateful for. I watched the late news just now and the images from Burma and China are completely devastating. I’m raging at these co called generals in Burma who won’t let foreign aid workers in to help whilst the people they are supposed to govern are stranded and dying. How dare they claim authority over a land and show such disdain for those who suffer on it. Who the hell (and that’s not the word I want to use but I’m aware that younger folk sometimes read these pages) do these people think they are? And whilst I’m at, it if there is a light from heaven that can explain earthquakes and thousands of Chinese kids in rubble then I’m all ears. I'm very hard pressed to put that under the heading of mystery.