a moment in time

I borrowed the title from my husband's book but I also noticed it on a poster today advertising a lecture in discovering local history ... Yesterday me and Dave voted. We walked out of the farmyard, through the 'kissing gate', along the side of a field on a very muddy footpath (actually more like a stream bed after all the rain has washed the top soil off) and turned left out of the snicket onto the track which led to Marsh Chapel. The last few times the officials have placed a portoloo onto the pavement by the side of the Chapel, next to that is the sign 'polling station' and you go into the kitchen. The first thing we heard was the organist practising ... Then you go through another door into a back room with an old electric fire on. There was a chap sat sorting out all the voting papers and squeezed into the corner were the two put-up booths. We were looking for the box to put our votes in and then realised the lady waiting had put her stick on top of it. We edged past her, she politely smiled, apologised, removed her stick and we voted and made our way through the kitchen still humming the hymn. Last summer I spotted two friends of mine strolling through Todmorden as I drove through after a wedding. Trevor wore a linen suit, straw boater and walking cane; Cathy had a huge sunhat covered in flowers. I asked them if they had been to a wedding. No, they replied, they were going to vote ... The Book of Caris, from which I borrowed the title of this blog (in the book it is where Titus sees Hadrian's Wall for the first time) is for sale - and being bought, I hasten to add! Email us if you're interested: info@tripleharps.com

concerts

This is my poster for a forthcoming concert more details of other concerts coming soon

Had a really busy day , First we delivered the pet food as normal then the publisher phoned to say that Dave's new book was ready so we went and collected that. We then had to nip to Asda and got back to the farm to find that someone had been to the farm and opened all the gates and let the sheep out . Finally after catching all the sheep we had Dinner . Dave has spent the evening trying to figure out Twitter I now believe I have a twitter account but I am not sure just how to use it yet so please bear with us If you want to follow my "Tweets" then add me Fiona Katie Roberts @HarpsFKRoberts Thats all for today back to recording tomorrow and Dave is back on with his marketing drive for new venues and bookings

It is finished! THE BOOK OF CARIS by David John widdop The illustration you see is of Caris drawn by our friend, Dennis Oates of Oxenhope. The book is being printed tomorrow. My husband, Dave, started writing this book by hand over two years ago but over the last couple of months we have been transferring it to print and doing the corrections ... I mention this, not because he is such a bad speller or even bad at grammar, no, we picked up a nasty virus which messed up everything we tried to type! The more we corrected the line endings, the more went wrong! Trouble was, it only showed up when we turned on the computer again, everytime we left it - things were perfect. It was a nightmare! We nearly lost it and worked through till 3 or 4 am every morning to try and get it right. I think we re-typed the whole book 4 times! Now you know why I haven't been near the blog. Dave has to live in and amongst 32 harps (and of course me). You've heard of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'? Well I think Dave did just that. The book starts with a beautiful harp and not only that, he wrote me a whole book full of tunes. Each event in the book, or character, has a tune so we are on with the recording right now. I have played these tunes in concert a few times now and he can write some lovely melodies - brought some to tears they did! More soon!

All for the cat

You would not believe how much work he has created ... He isn't even a big cat, about 3/4 in size. He is, however, such a thief. He can get the screw caps off milk bottles, get cheese out of celaphane, open tupperware boxes and tins and will knock anything off a shelf to see if it breaks so he can get in that way.

A couple of weeks ago some walkers took him back to their hotel because they fell in love with him. Luckily I had been round the vets and pet shops and left our number. I'm wondering if he stole all their chocolates in the night before they decided to hand him in!

Dave has spent all day sealing up every tiny crack and hole around the pantry. I lock the door and a couple of hours later find the cat locked in yowling madly. He has squeezed through the tiniest holes around the central heating pipes. He has even chewed a cat sized holes in the platerboard.

There is now a brand new door across the corridor outside the pantry and wooden cladding all around the holes. Finger's crossed!

On the harp front I spent an enjoyable week playing to nursery children and special needs children. We took a vote and they have decided that 'happy dance' music is better than 'sleep' music. They settled quietly with lots of drumming, bells and a good beat!

I am playing at Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle on Sunday 11th March between 10-4 pm for their Wedding Fayre.

Mending the Tractor

A year last November we had a massive storm and a huge pine tree came down at the corner of the garden. Luckily it missed the house by inches but managed to land straddled across the tractor. We had to saw off each branch carefully to get to the tractor. Most of the glass broke and the exhaust snapped off but apart from that it was okay. Well we have not managed to do any work on the tractor itself since then and suddenly realised that plants were growing inside! It still starts okay and runs fine so we bought some perspex and started cutting yesterday.

I have just bought 3 tubes of black silicone and the sun is shining so we can stick all the panels in again!

To continue the theme of nursery rhymes I sat next to a lady at a luncheon I was speaker at the other day and she told me about Jack Horner. He was supposed to collect all the deeds of properties for King Henry VIII but kept one ...

'took out a plum and said what a good boy am I' !!!

Our barn was apparantly sold in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540 as it was a Tithe barn and there was a large vegetable garden walled in at the front and the back was open to the valley for sheep. Now there is a 17thC Manor House built next door and they took the walled garden. The land nearby has lots of different herbs still growing wild as they used to be skilled herbalists.

My next concert is on March 23rd but I will be playing at Bowes Museum in Barard Castle on Sunday 11th March. In the meantime I have lots of private bookings for parties and as a speaker.

sledging and schools

We escaped lightly with the snow but I honestly think most of it blew down into the valley! I went into Haworth this morning and it was still chaos. Every side road was 4 inches of solid white ice and every time you drove past a road end you had to watch out for out of control cars skidding out into the main road.

The harps sound superb (they love it cold!) and the phone has rung and rung this week so that's brilliant. Suddenly I have a lot of school bookings again. I still get big grins and 'you're the harp lady aren't you?' when I'm shopping. They never forget and it's lovely.

Well I made potato salad today with the tops of the chives poking out of the snow, I then struggled with cling film to try and get my masterpiece of cold meats and salad prepared for my husband's dinner tonight. Never again! I made a completely useless mess of it and had to use sellotape to rectify the edges! I then went upstairs to paint the skirting board and knocked the paint over ... arghhhh! I am hoping this break gets me in slightly more sensible frame of mind!!! Here's hoping... (Hope you're keeping warm)