A magical evening by the canal

We've passed through the Fishery Lock on the GU at Boxmoor several times. The last time was back in May this year. And in May, the Fishery Inn was still empty after a period of several years, and the Fishery Wharf Café didn't even exist. So it was with some surprise and great delight that we visited the new Café last Saturday evening, discovering as we did so that the ancient Inn is now at last open again, and doing a roaring trade.

photos - www.thefisheryinnhemelhempstead.co.uk

The two-month-old Fishery Wharf Café was hosting the fourth annual Dacorum FolkFest, and this was very special to us because The Company of Players were performing together for just the second time since their founding earlier in the year.

"The Company of Players is the brainchild of Said the Maiden's Jess Distill. Inspired by other collaborative folk projects such as The Full English, The Elizabethan Sessions and Songs for the Voiceless, Jess wanted to bring together some of her favourite up and coming folk musicians to collaborate on a body of work celebrating Shakespeare 400. The Company of Players comprises some of the country's brightest young folk stars: Said the Maiden (Jess Distill, Kathy Pilkinton and Hannah Elizabeth), Kelly Oliver, Sam Kelly, Kim Lowings, Lukas Drinkwater, Chris Cleverley, Daria Kulesh and Minnie Birch. The group spent a week together in a house in Belper, Derbyshire, writing, arranging and recording songs based on the works of William Shakespeare." (from their Festival brochure)

The Festival was a great success, despite the rainy start at 1:00pm. Local funding enabled them to make admission free to all up until 6:30, during which time five members of the Company - Kelly, Kim, Lukas, Chris and Daria - each played a 45-minute set.

photos by Keith Bache (@KeithBache)

Unfortunately, Minnie Birch was on tour in Ireland, and couldn't be there. There was an additional act, too, Al Scorch and Jess McIntosh bringing folk songs from the USA.

photo - @dacorumfolkfest

Admission after 7:00pm was by ticket. A large number stayed who'd been there during the afternoon, and a host of newcomers swelled the audience to a good size. Said the Maiden played a stunning 45 minutes; Sam Kelly likewise. The audience loved them.

photos - Keith Bache (@KeithBache)

photo - @dacorumfolkfest

But the greatest magic came next.

The Company of Players had been publicly launched at the Bristol Folk Festival over the May Bank Holiday this year. This was their second gig. They come from all over the country, and had only been able to rehearse once since May - in our house the evening before. Nine of them squashed onto a small stage. It took nearly half an hour for them to arrange themselves in that space, and to get their mics and instruments set up. They did a sound check. Many in the audience thought they'd started their set, and applauded and cheered loudly.

photo by Keith Bache (@KeithBache)

But then they sang, and they played, and they won an audience to whom they were totally unknown. They performed a total of 12 songs, introduced by the members who had written them. Because Minnie wasn't there, Jess sang her song for her. Most of the songs involved all nine of them in one way or another. And you'd never have guessed that they hadn't been playing together for years. It was truly astounding. It was a privilege to be there.

photos by Keith Bache (@KeithBache)

   

The rain had stopped, and the organisers took down the marquee wall nearest to the canal just a couple of metres away. It was nearly dark. A working boat chugged out of the lock and exchanged waves with the audience. Jess said how lovely it was to be performing in such a setting.

photos - @dacorumfolkfest

"My mum and dad live on a narrowboat," she said. "They're here this evening. Ironically, they came by car!"

The Company played on, and after their repertoire had been exhausted, the audience gave them a noisy, standing ovation, and wouldn't let them go, calling for more. 

"But that's all we have!" protested the musicians. But loud voices demanded an encore of Jess's song "Method in the Madness" (aka "The Hamlet Hoedown"), and a bunch of people went to the front and danced in front of the stage as the Company reprised the song. And the audience clapped and stamped their feet.

photo - @dacorumfolkfest

And after prolonged applause, numerous thanks to all those involved in the day's success, and more applause, the festival finished. There was a lot of excitement. People went to see various of the musicians, to congratulate, to ask questions. CDs were purchased. People drifted off home, leaving the Company overwhelmed.

photo - Keith Bache (@KeithBache)

They came back to our house to share their triumph, to unwind. Eventually, to sleep, perchance to dream. Some of them on our floors.

It had been an amazing event. Watch out for more from The Company of Players!

Busy, busy, busy!

When we got back from the cruise with Christine and Mike, we had an unusually large amount of washing to do. With a smallish washing machine, that's a lot of loads, but the problem's with the drying, not the washing. We have a washing line under the cratch, about five metres long, and four radiators in the boat, but occasionally that's just not enough. The answer was to go back to the house, and use the machines and drying space there. This idea was reinforced when Jess texted to let us know she was going to drive herself to Ely Folk Club that evening, to see The Younguns, supported by her friend Kelly Oliver. There was no way we were going to let her drive that distance, with her knee still not fully recovered from surgery earlier this year, so we hurried back to St Albans, started the washing, and took Jess to Ely, picking up friend Kat on the way.

It was a great gig. Kelly did a good set, and The Younguns were excellent; hugely talented musicians with a hilarious sense of humour. We had a brilliant time.

We finished the washing and returned to Kantara the next day, travelling via Aylesbury to pick up a 56lb weight Grace had bought on Ebay. We needed this to add to the ballast in Kantara, to counterbalance on the starboard side the difference in weight of the port because of the galley rebuild. It's now been positioned, and works a treat.

We got back to the marina to find that NB Cream Cracker had moved into the berth next to us. Grace immediately recognised the boat, and Karen, who'd been on the Castles and Roses course at Stoke Bruerne in May. We realised later that we'd actually met Karen and Darren back in 2012 at a Halloween party at the marina. They'd only just bought their boat, which was moored here at the time. And they'd shared a table with us at the event, along with another couple. On that occasion, though, they both looked rather different!

We went to the cinema on Friday, to see "The Hundred Foot Journey".

"Hassan Kadam is a culinary ingénue with the gastronomic equivalent of perfect pitch. When Hassan and his family, led by Papa, move to a quaint village in the South of France with the grand plan of opening an Indian restaurant in the picturesque countryside, they are undeterred by the fact that only 100 feet opposite stands a Michelin starred classical French eatery. However upon encountering the icy proprietress, Madame Mallory, the Kadam family realise they may have bitten off more than they can chew. Outraged by the new arrivals, Madame Mallory is determined to have their business shut down. As cultures clash and food flies, an all-out war escalates between the two establishments -- until, that is, Hassan's passion and talent for French cuisine begin to enchant Madame Mallory and even she can't deny this young chef could have what it takes to garner even more acclaim for her beloved restaurant. This, along with his new-found friendship with her beautiful sous chef Marguerite, starts to weave a magic between the two cultures and, despite their different tastes, they discover an unlikely recipe for success that surprises them all."

As expected, it was a very good film, and well worth watching, although we both thought there was something missing, though we couldn't say what.

While we were out, we went to nearby Maplins and bought some best-quality co-axial cable for our satellite TV dish. We'd had the darned thing for at least two years, and never been able to get a consistently good service from it. We'd tried the TV's built-in receiver, then the receiver which came with the dish (from Maplins), then another box being given away at the marina. We failed repeatedly to get a decent signal. Then Grace read about this superior grade cable on a forum, but we'd never got around to buying any. When we discovered the tiny antenna I wrote about a week or so ago, we believed that our viewing problems had been solved.

But it turned out not to be as good as it had seemed, so we went back to the satellite dish idea, and bought the cable and new connectors.

When we connected the dish to the TV, straight away we got a strong signal, and the set connected to over 400 (!) channels. OK, so most of those channels are duplicates, rubbish, or pay-to-see, but the remaining dozen are ones we want, and we celebrated by watching the first in the new series of Downton Abbey last night!

At 3 o'clock on Saturday, we joined in the marina "Three Village Treasure Hunt". This had been put together by Jenny, the marina manager, and followed two similar, very successful events over the past couple of years, both of which had focussed on just the one village - Yelvertoft. This year, we could choose from three villages - Yelvertoft, Crick or West Haddon - or do any combination of them. Grace and I teamed up with Jane from NB Rainbow, and Chris, the lady from NB Thursa, and we opted to start at Yelvertoft and see how far we got!

It transpired that the Yelvertoft hunt took us to a completely new part of the village, was very detailed, quite challenging, and great fun. And it took us two hours to complete, so we didn't do either of the other villages. Grace and I have kept the clue sheets, so we might well do these two some other time.

Returning to the marina, there was the usual barbecue and quiz which we did with Jane, Chris, and her husband Clive, and this was very enjoyable, as always (though I didn't care much for the live music, I have to say.) To our surprise, we came second in the treasure hunt, and second in the quiz - though the team in first place got no less than eight points more than us! It was a really enjoyable afternoon and evening.

Back in December, our niece Kathryn gave us a couple of seedbomb starter kits. The idea of seed bombs is to plant appropriate flowers in derelict, abandoned pieces of land - so-called guerilla gardening. Of course, one has to be very careful to choose appropriate sites, and there is, understandably, a lot of controversy surrounding their use. One doesn't want flowers growing where crops are to be planted, or where animals are grazing, for example. So it was with due care and attention that I distributed fifteen poppy-seed bombs along the bank of the North Oxford Canal while we were out most recently. Often these landed alongside bridges, sometimes where buildings had long ago been pulled down. We look forward to returning up the canal in a couple of years' time, to see how they developed. We now have one more kit to use - "Birds and bees attracting" - when we head over to Stratford this week.