I just came home after a lovely time in Germany, so many great people, shows, hospitality, friendships food and drink. I feel so lucky that I can play such a wide variety of venues, every day is quite different: indoor shows, outdoor shows, theatres, churches, a smoky blues club, a village hall, house concerts, a festival. I had a lot of new songs to play and that made the tour both challenging and interesting. People ask me if it is lonely touring solo? Not at all, if anything it is more sociable, I am constantly meeting and talking to people.

Meal of the tour has to be in the old square of Naumburg with my friend Robert Weinkauf where I had fried catfish washed down with black beer; closely followed in second place by the venison and potato dumplings at a hidden farm restaurant in Mörlenbach accompanied by my friend Ulf and a couple of flagons of home made cider. Ulf Hilzenbecher also accompanied me on bodhran at the festival in Weinheim.

There were some downsides too: I had to drive 4928km on the Autobahns (with no Tom to help me as tour manager!) and there was so much traffic most of the time that my average speed was rarely over 100km per hour. I got a useful tip though: always open the car window when you drive over a bridge. The bridges in Germany have not been properly maintained and are falling apart. If you leave the window open then you have a fighting chance to climb out should the worst happen. While I was there a bridge in Dresden collapsed into the River Elbe, just 15 mins before the last tram went over. Luckily it happened at night and nobody was hurt.

The back brakes on my car totally gave way in Flensburg but I was very lucky that it happened there; I could borrow a car from my friend Thies for the last show and also find a great garage to put in new disks and brake shoes for the ride home.

Back home and things are a little quieter, no lizard, no cat. The wolves are still seen almost every day inside the village, scores of cats have gone missing, some bits of them have been found and it is unwise to walk the dog off the lead. The authorities have tried ‘scaring them away’, didn’t work.

I have three days to prepare for the next tour before I head off to England to start rehearsing with Oysterband. It will be a busy month but I am going to enjoy every day of it I am sure. After this tour I will be home for the long Swedish winter and have enough time to cook up some new plans.

Thanks for all my lovely birthday wishes everybody.

Ray

Photo Kerstin Maier

 

Photo Kerstin Maier

 

October  solo shows

10 Oct  London Green Note 

11 Oct  Cranbrook St Dunstan’s Church

16 Oct  Birmingham Red Lion

17 Oct  Barnoldswick Arts  with Virginia Kettle

18 Oct  Milkmaid Bury St Edmunds

21 Oct  Boarhunt Forest Folk

23 Oct York Museum St Tavern

25 Oct  Otley UpCo

26 Oct Leamington Spa Temperance Cafe

27 Oct Rhayader  The Lost Arc