The Sunday afternoon "folk club" was particularly pleasing for us, though not for the expected reasons. When 3pm arrived there was only one recognisable folk person there besides ourselves (We assumed everyone was at the Shanty Session or that you all think we're rubbish) and the rest of the drinkers and diners were eying us and our range of instruments with varying degrees of suspicion.

Since we had only half the band this was quite worrying because we were limited to about an hour and three quarters worth of repertoire in the absence of Paul & Rob so it looked like we'd have to fall back on ceilidh tunes or, worse, (because the body count would be likely to scare the regulars away) Mark's solo repertoire.

All fears were dispelled once we started and the "locals" clearly enjoyed the stuff we were doing. One bloke went off home to get his flute, another, Sam Johnson aged around 15 ish, went off to get his bagpipes and, suddenly, we were off the hook. As the afternoon progressed other performers arrived and the local people continued to enjoy.

As it panned out, we had spots from David Paskell (the aforementioned only other recognisable person when we arrived), Pete Smith, Paul Errington and his baritone ukulele, Rachel Curry on Flute and unaccompanied singing and young Sam Johnson and his lively piping with his younger sister doing a spot of dancing.

We did a few short, themed sets consisting of our usual numbers with a few never-before-played-in-a-gig-situation songs plus we were able to have a special set from Kate & Sarah doing their own, non-Jack's Rake songs.

All in all, a great afternoon in the end but made even better by the fact that a few unwary Hillsborough Hotel regulars were exposed to some folk music and enjoyed it.

Thanks to Jim for asking us along!