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      A Trip to Crete

      Training 1

      They went there by bus, travelling along tiny little windy roads. It was quite frightening to watch how the bus driver was manoeuvring the vehicle around all of the twisty curves in the road, quite breathtaking. At every curve they were scared that the bus would crash, and the bus driver had to signal with his horn at each turning as it was impossible to see if any traffic was coming from the other direction.

      Training 2

      There were only two ways to get to the ruins – on foot, or by boat. So, they started walking in that direction, along a dried-up riverbed. From the map it seemed that the distance they had to walk was about three kilometres, but it must have been longer, as it took them about three hours of difficult climbing and scrambling over rocks to get there.

      Training 3

      At one point on the way they reached the top of a hill, from which they had an amazing view of the ruins. There they met a boy from France, who they shared friendly gestures with, but couldn’t really speak with as they didn’t speak a foreign language. They climbed down from there together, into the grounds of the ruins. There was a fence blocking their path, but it was quite small and easy to climb over.

      Training 4

      In the grounds of the ruins were some very twisty, gnarled old olive trees, and at the entrance they found a beautiful mosaic from the Roman times, leading to many little paths. The monastery was very small. Each of the monks’ cells were just tiny little box-like rooms, two by three metres in size. The whole place had a beautiful, ancient atmosphere.

      Training 5

      Fortunately, they met a fisherman on the beach, who was there fishing for octopuses. He was kind enough to take them back to the road by boat, which only took about ten or fifteen minutes, and the walk to the bus stop from where he dropped them off was very short. They were well in time to catch the bus. They were very happy, if a little exhausted, after a nice, interesting trip.

      Pub Music in Edinburgh

      I first became involved in playing Irish music many years ago when I first visited Ireland and was greatly inspired after attending some great folk festivals there. The first one I went to was in County Sligo, in Ballisadare. There were so many great groups playing there – DeDanaan, The Bothy Band, Clannad, all the best-known Irish musicians of that time. There were thousands of tents and thousands of people everywhere, and there was a really great atmosphere. The whole thing lasted for three days, and I had a really nice time.

      What struck me most was the power of the sound of the fiddle, such a fantastic instrument. I took up the fiddle when I was a small child but dropped it when I came to the age of about thirteen. But after seeing those folk play in Ireland, well, I had to pick it up again. I brought some sheet music back from Ireland, and when I got back home to Dorchester, joined a local folk music club and tried a few tunes. First, we played the tunes very slowly. You wouldn’t recognize them because they were so slow, but gradually I learnt a few of them by heart.

      Then I moved to Edinburgh, because my wife, Sophie, is a scientist, and she got a grant to go and work at the University of Edinburgh. She was looking for a place to work where she could work well and expand her knowledge, and at the same time somewhere where I would feel happy. We considered Ireland and Scotland, and eventually decided upon Scotland. I found some work there too. I am also a scientist, a biologist, specializing in mosses. There are so many mosses in Scotland, and I knew people up there who were also involved in studying mosses, so I found myself working for the peat land section of the Scottish Heritage Trust. At home I’d just finished a big study on heavy metal deposition, which can be gauged by analyzing mosses, and I had some good opportunities to talk with other experts about my results, as well as to collect mosses.

      My time in Edinburgh was one of the finest times of my life, because I enjoyed my work, and there was great music in the evenings. I went out three times a week to folk music sessions, which took place in a few of the local pubs, and met some really great musicians there, some lovely people. We’d go in and sit down in the pub at the beginning of the evening, have a drink, and would be chatting away when someone would get out their instrument and start playing. Then others that knew the tune they were playing would join in. Some people would play regularly in each pub, and there were always people passing through. The first session I went to I discovered by luck. I just went into the pub and saw that there were people playing, and once you’re in one session it’s easy to find out from the musicians the times and places of others. I really was a bad fiddle player at the time, but I tried to play a bit and listened a lot, and people

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