Well, RiB, you outlasted me Saturday by a couple of hours. Many thanks to Kathie Mack, who helped me stagger back to my room about 8pm. She missed the first concert set to help get me back there with all my stuff. I went right to sleep, slept until last call for Sunday breakfast.

The result was that I felt terrific on Sunday, got to workshops all day long and stayed up till 4am like everybody else. :)

For us the weekend started with the pub sing with Micca at the Royal Mile, having Joe Offer and Barry Finn stay here Thursday night, then trying to pack on Friday while trying to catch up on a year's worth of gossip with Joe & Barry. It was hopeless. Finally Bill left without me, Joe having Offered to give me a ride, so's to speak.

FINALLY I got to gossip enough, because we took the back roads and hit much traffic and it was a damn long drive. I can't tell you how much fun it was, just singing and talking and taking our time. All this really started the weekend off right.

Highlights? The whole weekend was so bright and shiny I can hardly believe it.

Whoa. I know I stayed up until about 2pm Friday but right at the moment can't remember a thing about it.... I do remember hearing from Charlie that Mick couldn't leave Michigan until 5pm, but had promised he would stop part way and get some sleep. He did, too, and arrived about 10 minutes before our "Musical MeetnGreet" session started.

One special time was sitting in the dining room very late last night with Dani, Mick, Barry, Tinker, Allan C, Micca, and various "floaters".... If I forgot anyone it's because my brain was fried.... I put my feet up on a chair and closed my eyes but it was still wonderful just to be sitting there listening.... and getting Mick to sing Spancil Hill .... Talk about a Mudcat Moment!

AND, a classic Getaway Moment, Mick and Barry were singing a fierce Irish song and Barry picked up one of the cafeteria chairs, held it sideways on his lap and thumped it like a bodhran. Oh my.

Then, watching Barry with Mick's bodhran once he fetched it from the car. Hard to explain, he was so at home with the instrument, adjusting it until it felt just right, finding so many ways to vary the sound and the rhythm. I never watched one played by an expert before, I always thought you just thumped them....

And after Rick Fielding and Jed Marum's wonderful Instrumental Styles workshop, going up to my room to change for dinner and hearing Pauline Lerner, out on the lawn, still playing tunes on her fiddle.

And watching my son Shadowmonk, who helped lead the fantasy adventures, surrounded by so many kids he looked like the Pied Piper. And hearing him and his friends join in the late night sings. And Mmario joining in on one of their RenFest/Pyrate Royale songs "The Grand Pubs of Yorkshire."

Then there was the last half hour before we left, while I was once again trying to get packed (I'm ALWAYS the last one!). Kendall loves zithers and wanted to hear mine, so I sat on the big old stump in front of the white house and played Rose of Allendale. Sunshine, fall foliage, Sandy Paton (also packing to leave) coming over to sing along on the chorus, other people wandering by and stopping to hear One More Song. Ahhhhh....