We've just come back from a mini tour of the North of England, the highlight of which for me was playing in Ye Olde Man and Scythe in Bolton (my home town) with my Dad in the audience. What a great pub! John Jewitt the landlord (pictured with me) holds live music nights every Saturday and we supported Phil Mellish and his acoustic trio as part of Bolton Food and Drink Festival- I suppose we did drink a bit! We went down well with the regulars and the men reserved a special whoop for Mark's musical saw playing- very practical Bolton men. We made some new friends including David (pictured). It was a shame we couldn't stay till the 15 October when John renacts the be-heading of the Seventh Earl of Derby - I hope you get your head in the basket this time John!

Before that we'd played at The Cornerhouse in Manchester on the Friday, then on the Sunday we headed off to Leeds and recorded two songs and a radio interview with BBC Radio Leed's Russell Walker. It was great to be in the studio and have a chat. We'll keep you posted on when the interview goes out.

After an unplanned tour of Leeds' one way system we did a set at The MixingTin and played with The Avenues, who were fab fab fab. They love playing together and though some of their lyrics cover the darker shades their three part harmonies and melodies were full of sunshine and playfulness. Hopefully we'll play with them again when they come down to London. Anna also added her stupendous whistling ability to our set this time- blimey she's good.

I've never seen someone do a beat box, sing and play the guitar very fast (sucessfully) but L-Mo did this at Santiago's and was fantastic. We were a bit knackered by the time we got to do our set at 12.30 but it was worth it to play in a smokey spaced out way to a load of smokey spaced out people, you could have heard a butterfly, the gain on the mic was so high and we really went with the chilled out chamber music vibe.

I hope we see some of our new friends when we next come up North, including Kate at the Cornerhouse, who made us feel so welcome and sorted out the pa for us. Cheers and thanks very much.

Rosemary