15 Years

Steve enroute from Bellingham

From Kristi: Last night we toasted a celebratory drink to 15 years since first we set foot here on British soil.  I vividly recall the day, September 11 2001, as we ventured forth from Heathrow to our bed and breakfast in Lincolnshire.  My worldview was rapidly evolving.  I looked upon the carefully groomed greenery and thought about all the years of cultivation and repeated survivals of two thousand years of invasions, occupations, and wars coming from various directions.  I thought of the queen’s Victory Garden and how she valiantly set her own example for sustainability.  I suspected that if we were surrounded on this island and cut off, her people would find a way to survive.  Then the news came later in the day that no planes would be leaving the U.K. for the U.S.A. for any time in the defined future.   I once  again made a quick decision that I could adjust to living here.  I could support myself with some help from Steve and this benevolent-appearing government.   That probably is still the case, but after 15 years I’m still a bit puzzled by the nature of the welcome mat immigrants are so desperate to find here.  Time and time again we hear folk songs about loss of jobs in the varied fields of fishing, mining, and the rest of the production trades.   I’m not clear on what are the great opportunities they see here.

But the wind never seems to stop.  Wind generators have made their way into fields seemingly everywhere, since we first came 15 years ago.

I don’t love travel here.  I love getting to yet another endlessly interesting place.  A song lyric keeps coming to me:  “we may never pass this way again”.   In fact some of these places feel quite familiar to us by now.   What I love most of all is the familiar and welcoming faces of those comprising this widespread-yet-small community of people who glue it all together with their tireless work and heartfelt support of music.   They make us feel a sense of a home away from home from time to time in our travels.

I have since I left home envisaged a keen image of the last big cross-country dash to our booking in Southampton followed by a late-night drive to the airport for our flight out the next day.  It’s coming soon.  Home beckons.  Sometimes I book a pretty hectic trip.

The photo here is from Bellingham, Northumberland (pronounced bell in jum), wherein we performed yesterday at the wonderful festival aptly named BAAFEST.  The duo and married couple Landermason, being Fiona Lander and Paul Mason, invited us back for that pleasure.