Thank you for your answer, weelittledrummer.

weelittledrummer wrote:

"Oh dear! You certainly seem to have had your share of problems!"

Yes, I have, including some I don't to want to write about on a message board, though I am well aware that there are many people with worse problems.

"You must develop a little more sang froid about the folk scene. It is full of people opining - this isn't folk music and that isn't folk music."

I know what you mean. I have a scholarly interest in folk music, and definitions are important from that point of view, but otherwise, who cares? As long as they don't call it "late for dinner".

It's a little different here in Germany, in particular people's attitudes to their own traditional music.

Much of my free time is filled with sending out job applications, something I've done more than enough of, but if I can ever stop doing that, I might try to find people to play with, perform at an open-mike night, or something like that. What I'd really like to do, though, is to use music (including folk music) in (short) animated films. Not that I'd mind making long ones, but animation is extremely time-consuming and expensive. I know there's no substitute for the experience of performing in front of other people.