Fishing line but no fish

I am taking a break. It has just taken 3 hrs and 40 minutes to get the first 42 strings on. (another 80 to go - arghhhh!!) I had to take most of the pegs off another harp (which is second in line to be repaired). I use fishing line - not because I am a 'skin-flint' but because my harps are designed to sound different and to do this I have altered the lengths of the strings. All mathematics. When I asked the string manufacturers for quotes to buy rolls they wouldn't let me have them - only pre-cut lengths available. Huh!! Eventually a fellow musician who owned a fishing supplies wholesale company let me have every guage he had in stock!

Another problem I had was that I have to use harpsichord pegs to hold the strings onto the harp. To get more than one set of strings on the top (head) of the harp you have to be pretty organised - there isn't much room! The harpishord pegs have a standard width of hole in the end to thread the wire string through before you start winding it on and tightening it. The hole is much too small for the first octave of nylon strings. Solution ... to hammer the end of the string flat on an old shoe last and carefully cut a thin sliver off so it fits through!

As I write this the air is acrid because a local mill burnt down yesterday in Haworth, also Dave is outside spraying the first coat onto Dav-Al. Be patient Dave!!! He is so excited to see the finished result he worked till midnight in the barn the other night... (but I can't wait either!).

At Burnley Community Festival next Sunday - Queen's Park

Making DavAl

Actually exhausted myself and overslept - usually up with the lark (or the cockrells on our farm). I have been finishing the new 'Elizabethan' quad harp, Mystic-Al and helping my husband, Dave, to finish the modern 'harp of all harps', DavAl. Thank you to all those who have asked when AngAl will be made.... and also my son who added when is FinAl going to be made!!! He has a point and I have struggled to make these harps as Dave is now realising. It is not easy. I have 2 re-makes, 2 harps to mend and am in the process of re-making HandAl, alongside MysticAl. THAT WILL BE IT!!!! My arms ache!!!

Talking of which... we ordered the specialist long drill bit so the drill is on charge! Today's job is to start drilling the outer string holes on MystiCal - reinforce the head with long screws and put together the soundboard of HandAl - a remake. This was the harp my daughter took to Oxford with her and caused a huge stir down there. It was then I realised I had some very serious 'fans' who were following my career, albeit from a distance and unknown to me. HandAl was very heavy and the soundboard wasn't brilliant so hence the re-make.

I am playing at the event Incredibly Edible Rossendale this Saturday 11.30'ish. Just past Kingfisher House on lhs coming out of Bacup on Rossendale road. All about growing yr own veg...