Kitty-

Slim indeed! We are really having a whole lot of fun but it's easy to overextend ourselves.

Today Martin, Judy and I took the train from York to Hull to join the crowd at The Olde Black Boy. It was an interesting trip down, a totally different landscape of flat fields, irrigation ditches, and huge complexes of coal-burning generators. Then we paralleled the Humber River and slid into Hull.

No sooner had we disembarked from the train when we were met by Les (how did he figure out who we were? Maybe the banjo case gave me away!) who guided us over to the Maritime Museum where there were floors of exhibits: whaling, merchant marine, Naval, dock yards, marine art, ship models and a whole lot more.

Then we wandered down the docks to the Minerva Tavern (what a great space for singing!) where we had lunch and something to drink.

Next we dashed over to the session at the Black Boy where there was another fine room for singing, and filled with singers. I can't begin to list all who were there but included were Jim Saville (my partner on the C. Fox Smith Project), Jake who also has done some biographical research on C. Fox Smith, Hissyfit (Linda and Hazel), Les, and I'd really like to know the names of the others. The acoustics were superb and choruses and refrains were robust, even with unfamiliar songs.

I could certainly enjoy spending quite a bit of time swapping songs in Hull, and exploring other parts of the waterfront.

Afterward, Jim kindly escorted us to the train station (Martin had to leave earlier) and we caught the 7 pm train back to York. We're getting quite good at finding our way back to our home neighborhood.

Looks like we'll be spending the next two days doing more exploration in and around York. Saturday, we'll go out to the Otley Festival early.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, resident in York