Once again, I'm back to picking tunes after an extended period of don't-wanna.

This time it was lockdown and the low-grade dread that went with it, followed by everything cancelled and no-one to play with. But the other day I received a text from a fiddler I met last summer at the Goderich Celtic College; would I like to come over and play some diddly music?

Would I ever.

We sat six feet apart in her back yard and played Spootskerry (which she learned from me) and Jerry Holland's version of The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre (which I learned from her) for almost two hours. Then we made a date to do the same thing next Tuesday at my house.

I'm flat-out astonished how much perkier I feel.

How 'bout the rest of youse out there?