4th April 2022.
The notice has gone out for next Sunday’s session in the Dubliner.
On Saturday we met at the home of our newly found mandola player for a band practice. The home lies on the outskirts of a village called Triadi. You might be wondering how a village can have outskirts, but that is the only way I can describe it. His garden was more of a meadow than a garden, sloping down to an olive grove, and from the garden there was a wonderful view of the Thermaic Gulf in the distance. In short, a beautiful setting for a music practice. Unfortunately, the wind obliged us to move inside. Following a GPS can be quite an adventure in Greece. Mine worked well until the last moment. “Your destination is on the right.” In fact, it was on the left. I had to go out twice, like a good shepherd, to find our strays. We were an hour behind schedule before we got started.
We got through the practice list with the usual level of errors and mishaps. Given the difficulties of getting people together, it is unlikely that we’ll make our targeted debut of 14th or 15th May, but we’ll get there eventually. Why is it difficult to organise a practice? Well, four of us live outside town. For the townies, public transport takes time. For us country boys (we are all men), getting to town is easy but finding a place to park can be a huge problem.
As I had suggested only six or seven items for practice, we got through them by 8pm. Then the evening switched from Irish to Greek, as the host’s wife produced a six-string bouzouki and sang some rebetika. Two of them were O Θερμαστής (The Stoker) and Αρρώστησα στα Ξένα μακριά Σου (I fell ill overseas far from you). She turned out to be the star of the show. Another pleasant surprise was the host’s mother, who joined us live from New Zealand. She’s a fiddler, so we switched back to Irish mode and played a couple of sets with her.
7th April: Some late news: Sunday’s session will be a bit different. A group, Jolly’s Irish Band, from the Ukraine will be doing a 45-minute gig for us live on YouTube. The manager has paid for this. Any contributions collected will also be transferred to Ukraine.