We flew over here in a Boeing 747.  At least we flew the last, and longest leg of the journey in one.  Kristi commented on how it was the first time she’d been in an airplane with an “upstairs”.  The most dramatic part of the flight was getting to Heathrow and being in line (“queue”) with a large diversity of people from all over the world.  We studied their faces as we stood in line, and mentally I made up stories about each on of them, guessing where they came from, and what kinds of lives they were leading based entirely on the basis of how they were dressed.  The line that we were in reached into the hallway, and down the corridors.  It took about an hour waiting to get through customs.
     I’m still jetlagged to a large extent.  It affects my thought processes, and my overall functionality.  We joke that we’re mentally impaired, but it’s a lame joke; too true to be funny.  Last night was the first night that we played anyplace.  We played at the Orpingtion Friday Folk Club, which is held at the Orpington Liberal Club.  I always wonder what they are liberal about.  It would seem that the UK is having the same, or at least similar kind of libertarian revolution happening.  You can’t call them conservatives, as a real conservative would have some vestige of honesty remaining (or one could hope).  You suspect that they are fascists, but you don’t actually know who “they” really are.  There was a fellow today; John Connelly, who wrote a song about the UK that could well have been written about American politicians.  I was somewhat amazed.
     So what’s going on with us?  Hmmm.  We went for a nice walk on Thursday along the Stort River, or was it the Sawbridgeworth Canal?  I’m not sure, but we walked out of Sawbridgeworth for quite a distance.  I was in a good social mood, and had conversations with a number of people along the way.  The first was a fellow in a bright yellow workman’s vest with a life jacket on as well.  He was working, and it seemed like such a fine day to have a job such as he did.  He was surveying the canal for snags, and whatever maintainance might be required.  He was on a gr8 walk.  He was from Scotland.  I wondered how he had lucked into such premium employment.  I wouldn’t mind having his job, but then Kristi reminded me that he undoubtedly does his job in any weather, not just when it is warm and sunny outside.

    There was another fellow who was in exercise shorts, and no shirt who passed us on the path, but we found sitting near one of the locks on the canal further on in our walk.  I started out by asking him about the locks, and he knew next to nothing about that, so we moved on to talking about his former life in southern CA, and life in Sawbridgeworth.  He was clearly not worried about work on this particular day, in spite of being at prime working age.  He had been married to an American woman.  We didn’t get the details of his breakup, but apparently there had been one.

     Then there was the guy with the really, really big houseboat.  He was doing some kind of work on the boat, and I got to talk to him about the locks, and he knew quite a bit about them, even showing me the tool that he uses to open, and close the lock gates.  He had contracted out work for the hull, and other metalwork, but apparently had done a lot of the work on the interior himself.  I asked him about lifestyles of the itinerant boat people, and he said he’s not that itinerant as his boat is too big to negotiate a lot of the canals in England.  If you do have a narrow enough boat, you can go almost any place in the country by canal boat.  That fact has always fascinated me.

     Shortly after that I think that the jetlag started kicking in, and I no longer felt really, really sociable.  We walked back to our host’s house, stopping briefly at a pub for a cup of coffee, and Kristi had a diet cola.  We worked that evening on getting ready to leave our hosts.  Friday was really focused on that end.  Kristi made sandwiches, and I saw to getting all of our stuff in the car.  Oh yeah, the car.  That’s a little story in and of itself.  As it turns out, it is a pretty low grade rental car.  We aren’t paying too much for it (I think), and it is entirely gutless.  The rear windshield wipers don’t work, and it has no cruise control.  I hadn’t realized entirely how much I had come to rely on cruise control to maintain a steady highway speed.  My foot is getting a good workout.  It is a Chevrolet “Spark”.  It will apparently get us where we want to go, as long as there aren’t too many hills.  Luckily, the terrain here is relatively flat, especially on the motorway.

  From Kristi: Orpington Friday Folk Club brought back a reasonably good group of followers who surprised us by wanting more of our recordings than we expected; the choice to record ourselves more or less live with no studio back-up musicians seems to be successful here so far.  This was our sixth year playing this club and has always been helpful in welcoming us when we are in the severest throes of jet-lag, being located so conveniently close to Heathrow.

  We’re writing from the relative luxury of a hotel room with privacy, a  bathroom, and free band-width to enjoy into the wee hours though it’s not yet midnight.  We’re in Blackpool thanks to the generosity of the Fylde Folk Festival organizers, Alan and Christine Bell.
   This is a fairly well-respected, prize-winning festival and Alan is a high-profile performer in his own right.  We’re pleased to be invited back.  We played four sets of music in two days and had gratifyingly good responses, having sold a pile of our new recordings.  We’re feeling encouraged to forge ahead with our upcoming 23 of 28 days.
   Today we took a walk down the seaside promenade of Blackpool.  As I understand it, the town was developed at the end of the Victorian era of the industrial revolution, to encourage the new disposable income of the blue-collar class on the innovation of the concept of a holiday with kids.  So entertainment suitable for children was designed here, such as merry-go-rounds and the like.  It continued into the revolution of electricity with the addition of the ubiquitously ingenious “Illuminations”, which began yesterday officially.  They surprised me the first time I found them as I drove from Fleetwood, the location of the Fylde Folk Festival, to Blackpool, a scant five miles away along the beach.  The drive affords a view of the lovely blonde sandy beach, replete with appropriate sea-birds, sunsets, and twinkling lights of ships on the horizon.  Until the Illuminations come along, that is.  They are a series of huge screens, effectively obliterating the aforementioned scenes.  They seem to me to be stealing the most tasteless aspects of Disneyana.  We’ll show you photos soon.  Granted, they bring tourism exactly when the crowds of summer are beginning to wane, opening exactly when school is about to start (that would be yesterday).  That makes sense as they’re lit by electric bulbs which make them much more appealing in the dark, which is just coming on now.  I suspect they vary each year in thematic content to bring in new tourism.  This year’s selection seems to make a weird attempt at cultural and historical enlightenment for children.  I found the Native American screen especially interesting.  On each ends are cacti, with synchronized Midwestern chiefs wearing Aztec garb with feathered headdress, dancing toward a totem pole in the center.  It’s totems include a clown, a tiger, and some other strange jungle-like animals.

    From Steve: The last couple of days I've felt a lot like a gunfighter.  When we walk out on a stage with several acts, just following someone else we feel like we have no choice but to kill.  Our guitars are our source of our agression, and our voices are the bullets.  Today the act that followed us was in tears as we played "Angels of the Road".  It was gratifiying.  We played agressively, and then folkily too.  Some people treat us like stars.  We feel like we have to win, which is kind of contrary to my basic philosophy in general.  We had people following us around to our performances, and we sold an unnatural number of CDs.  I suppose the hat lends credence to the gunfighter analogy,  but the feeling of being worn out, but under duress gives birth to the intensity that we  both feel about performance.  Tomorrow is a day off.  Steve N.