Carols at The Joiners'

So last night we went out and carolled in our local pub with Liam and Frank.

It was an experience :-D

I love our local landlady, Maggie, who is struggling to keep a true local alive - not always an easy task in today's political and social climate. The pub remains a bastion of warmth and community in a village that could easily - like so many other villages - become swamped under a wave of incomers and too-much-money-don't-want-to-mix-with-locals-types.

We often go round to play music there as it's a really friendly pub - essentially one room (about the same size as fleetfootmike's music room) with one bar, and two roaring coal fires - one at each end of the pub. If you're playing music, Maggie will usually give you free drink, and if it's good music then there is invariably a lock-in. All pretty good!

Some family and friends and a few bemused locals gathered to watch us, and the carols all went pretty well. Then Liam noticed that Maggie's "get custom in for Christmas" special was ... free eggnog. So I got free eggnog for us all whilst the boys played some tunesets. Blimey.

I've had eggnog before - whilst in the States. Tasting what was on offer last night, I can only assume that Jen (barmaid and eggnog producer)tasted the recipe and thought, "That's a bit bland. I think I'll jazz it up a bit...".

Frank was driving, but the rest of us eggnogged it up a bit. After three large glasses of this, the evening was taking on a rosy glow :-D Everyone ELSE in the pub was eggnogging, and some of the young lads (one of whom recently moved to the next village in search of a cheap house, and is therefore a source of much "foreigner!" ribbing) decided to join in. They'd already had a Works Do, and were three sheets to the wind *before* the beer and eggnog. Community singing has *never* been quite so raucous :-) *Everyone* in the pub was joining in with the carols (in various degrees of sobriety/tunefulness) and it was a truly wonderful community moment. Maggie did the rounds with the eggnog at least twice more (oh my thumping head), and the evening turned into a session with:

Tim: Cornet
Liam: Melodeon
Frank: Hammered Dulcimer
Me: Bagpipes

A strange combination, but one which works ridiculously well. I was very proud that I managed to keep up with Liam and Tim (Oh hang this 'multi-instrumentalist' malarkey, I think I'm just going to admit I'm a bagpiper and be done with it...) on the tunes and even lead a couple of sets myself. Liam demonstrated why he keeps knocking reeds out of tune on the box he bought from Tim (Dear God, that man can PLAY!) and we did "Dulci in Jubilo", complete with the Mike Oldfield lead guitar break from Tim on cornet. Right up until the point we laughed so hard that breath control became impossible :-D

"Good King Wenceslas" as a cajun number had to be heard to believed, and none of us are entirely sure why we ended up doing "The Irish Rover" and "The Wild Rover" towards the end of the night. Except *someone* requested them...

God, I LOVE my local :-)

And we got paid!