Getting towards the mid point of this tour now, so far we are still fairly healthy and nobody has yet collapsed from the accumulative effect of the greasy breakfasts served up every morning in the good old British B&Bs.

This tour is mostly of theatres and features a different, more acoustic form of the band with lots of singing and no electric instruments. In addition to his usual fiddle and concertina, Ian is playing a small reed organ, the one we used on the Oxford Girl And Other Stories album, I (Chopper) am playing mandolin and guitar in addition to my usual cello and harmonica, JJ and Alan are on their usual instruments, melodeon and guitars, and, as I said, there is lots of singing. Dil has set up his kit at the side of the stage instead of centre, so the whole show looks and sounds different.

The repertoire is mostly from the Oxford Girl album, but we have put in a few other rarely played songs, such as Rise Above, North Star, The Story, Voices, as well as songs from Meet You There and a few oldies.

The first 3 shows were sold out and we ran out of CDs to sell. Not knowing whether to be pleased with ourselves or annoyed that we did not bring more albums with us, we carried on into Wales for a delightful trip (the weather was, well, not great) around the country. And here we are, in a land of bi-lingual signs, charming people, rain and amazing countryside. Yesterday we stopped off on the River Teifi to watch the salmon leaping up a waterfall. It was one of those pantheistic moments, I was mesmerised by the brown swirling water, in fact I felt an ode coming on but didn't get past the first rhyme before it was time to climb back in the bus and get going................Chopper