MIDLAND GLIDING CLUB NEWSLETTER
Catering......... 1
Chairman’s Contribution... 2
Flying at Shobdon......... 3
Motor Glider Share For Sale 3
Treasurer’s Notes............ 4
The Club Share in the Motor Glider............ 5
Getting Current Again............ 5
Famous Five in Spain Again... 6
From the Flying Field.............. 8
John and Ann Parry
Sadly Ian Butt has given up the catering franchise due to the Foot and Mouth crisis. He and his team have looked after our needs excellently over the last few years and we are very grateful to them, and wish them well in their new ventures.
The good news is that Simon and Joanna Beadman, who run The Crown in Wentnor, expect to be taking over the franchise, starting as soon as the club reopens. Anyone who has eaten at The Crown will need no introduction to Simon and Joanna and the excellence of their meals.
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Please send Newsletter contributions to: John and Ann Parry Holly Cottage Wentnor Bishops Castle Shropshire SY9 5EE Telephone..01588 650379 Fax.………01588 650596 Email……..John.Parry@Virgin.net |
Club Details: The Midland Gliding Club The Long Mynd Church Stretton Shropshire SY6 6TA Office Telephone......01588 650206 Office Fax.................01588 650532 Members Telephone..01588 650405 Email……………….office@longmynd.com |
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Selected items from this Newsletter will appear on the Club Internet site which is: www.longmynd.com |
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Please could we have contributions for the September issue by 23rd August. (Earlier if possible please!) |
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Julian Fack
I write this in the last week of June, whilst we wait for news which we hope may enable us to reopen the club. Rather along the lines of the government’s spin doctors, there have been all sorts of rumours and premature announcements by various bodies, but we decided long ago to take the official reopening of the local footpaths as our signal that the Mynd is open for business.
The committee hope to get that news in just in time to include it as a separate sheet with this newsletter, but sadly not in time to meet Ann & John’s printing deadline.
Plans are already well advanced for the reopening, and work is in hand to get the club shipshape, or whatever shape gliding clubs should be in. Ian Butt, who has done so much to get our catering in order during the last few years has sadly decided to move on, and we are currently negotiating with a local person to take over the catering franchise as soon as possible. I have long felt that the catering is an indispensable part of our club, and one which helps preserve our unique atmosphere.
There are a number of jobs to be done around the clubhouse, since things were left just as they were when we ‘abandoned ship’ in February, you may well find that the place is not yet up to standard when we resume occupation. The committee take the view that you will wish to return to flying at ‘home’ as soon as possible, and not to wait for every job to be completed beforehand, so a degree of patience will be required, as well as some assistance where appropriate.
As usual, Nigel and Derek will be to the fore sorting the water system out. In fact Derek told me at Shobdon last weekend that he had inspected the water situation, and he would need to get the pump on the east side operating as soon as we return to site.
Iain Evans put forward the idea of a party soon after our return many months ago, and Ann Parry and Jon Hall are working on ideas to bring that to fruition. No doubt many other members will need to help out before that becomes a reality.
Paul Garnham and James Moore have been working with Dave Rance to provide the evidence needed to progress our business interruption insurance claim, and it looks as if their hard work may well pay off, although we are far from being out of the woods at this time.
Members have been flying at other sites during our absence. Shobdon seem to be pleased with the amount of flying that Mynd members have done recently, using both their tug and our Pawnee, and Sleap has also welcomed a few of our members. Iain and Rose competed as a pair in the Club Class Nationals at Husbands Bosworth, where Rose won two of the six days, with Iain finishing second on the last day, congratulations to you both! In addition MGC members have flown in Spain at two sites recently, see Paul Garnham’s report from Jaca on page 6. The CFI and others have been to Brian Speckley’s operation at Ontur near Alicante, and have reportedly had some superb flying.
I have a feeling that in spite of much activity amongst some members, there will be many of you who have not flown for quite a while. It will be vital to make sure that our return home is not marred by any crashery, therefore you should be mindful of our rules on currency. We will not be running public courses for a short time after our return, in order to allow members the chance to have whatever check flights are necessary.
Members will also be encouraged to fly during the week where they can benefit from John Stuart’s experience. At first we intend opening the professional operation on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, with the usual rota and winch driver system at weekends. In addition, if good weather is forecast for the other two days we may open on a ‘soaring group’ basis with aerotow only. As soon as we have enough trade to start the usual courses we will return to the normal five day professional system. Janet will be in the office on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
I look forward, as we all do, to returning home and seeing you all soon.
Neal Clements
Flying at Shobdon felt very similar to a club expedition, familiar aircraft, familiar(ish) rules of the air but different club, different circuit rules. John Stuart always says the way to get the most out of a different club is to become a ‘non issue’ and to enable this we had many briefings. Paul Garnham had done a nice write up and John had prepared a get you started briefing so with plenty of volunteers we rigged every time and then took it to whichever end of the long runway we were launching from. You can tell which end of the runway to go to because they have a proper signals square with proper signals on it, just like in the books. I had the foresight given to all instructors to go and look them up in Laws and Rules before asking everyone who turned up what the signals meant and catching everyone out. The launch is controlled by the tug as Shobdon runs ground control and flight information - a subtle difference that caught one of our instructors out. Control means ask and get permission, information means ask and then make your own mind up.
The glider traffic is kept well away from the other traffic and given maximum priority over anything else in the air, this must be true because there are two circuit directions, north dedicated solely to gliders and south which is shared by the rest. The other traffic by the way is power, micro light and helicopters. The latter don’t have wheels so they take off just to turn round and they taxi in the air!
Flying at Shobdon was excellent, you aerotow from the big runway then get dropped off in vaguely familiar territory, haven’t I flown around here before sometime? I usually get low and lost around Shobdon when I do Mynd - Shobdon - Talgarth and back. Learning the landmarks was great and to help John had created a pentangle of about 110 km which from 2500 feet never took you out of gliding range of the airfield but enabled us to practise speed flying and turning points. All the time the radio traffic is making hilarious listening, it’s so busy it takes you ages to get into the swing of it but once you have it becomes background music , you only wake up to the good bits. “Bravo Bravo, when you have finished taxiing please call in and get a Noise Abatement leaflet”, “Xray Kilo, I don’t think you should join there sir the gliders coming directly at you will be upset”. The tricky bit is when you have to get into circuit and land, the circuit itself is a doddle, round the caravan park then you are faced with two enormous runways, one grass one tarmac, very few hazards like gullys, forests, launching gliders, hang gliders etc etc. However the radio call needs to be done and it needs to sound professional because all the power guys are listening in waiting to snigger. “GLIDER XYZ downwind for Grass/Hard 09/27.” No problem but it seems daunting the first time you do it. Then off to a well earned cup of tea in the canteen, good food reasonably priced and at weekends the bar is open. It is always good to fly at different sites, keep your ears and your eyes open and learn new and possibly better ways of doing things. Being able to brush up on the radio was brilliant and funnily enough rigging the K21 every day was excellent practice.
Most of all though it opens up your range of cross country flying if you are of a nervous disposition. Shobdon is closer to the Mynd than the Mynd is to Shobdon so when you are halfway between Mynd and Shobdon then you are already more than half way. The Mynd is at 1500 feet and Shobdon is at 300 feet and as the distance between them is roughly 30 miles 15 miles out from the Mynd you need 3000 plus 1500 or 4500 feet in total to get back at ridge height while you only need 3000 plus 300 to get to Shobdon! Then there is Talgarth so a reasonable cross country can be done just hopping airfield to airfield. If you have taken the opportunity to fly at Shobdon then you need have no fear of the circuit or the radio and you’ll know where it is.
A share in the motor glider syndicate has become available. If you are interested please contact either Chris Ellis (01691 622788) or Paul Garnham (01588 673838).
David Rance
I have just returned from my holidays to be greeted by the excellent news that our Insurers, Allianz Cornhill, have now agreed to honour their obligations to pay out on our business interruption insurance policy.
You will recall that for 30 odd years we have had a business interruption policy in place, which usually applies to things like fire, flood, explosion and so on, but which Keith Mansell had extended to specifically cover Foot and Mouth disease after the last outbreak in 1967. At the outset of the outbreak, in late February we contacted the Insurers and met with their loss adjuster who indicated to us, off the record, that he thought our claim was sound. Our brokers thought like wise. However, after a lengthy period of deliberation, the Insurers decided that our circumstances did not exactly fit the form of words that would trigger the policy and declined to pay out.
The Brokers, Heath Lambert, who have arranged our affairs this year, then engaged their own claims specialist, Alan Robertson, at their head office, to overturn the insurers’ decision. Your committee, and particularly James Moore, with the help of Keith and Paul Garnham (who have lent their considerable experience and wisdom to the committee during this crisis) have worked tirelessly to gather evidence from the press, local area, Shropshire County Council, MAFF, National Trust, the Web, CAA and BGA and numerous other sources to help Alan put together a case that would force the insurers to change their position. This case was presented to the Allianz Cornhill a couple of weeks ago and we are delighted that they are now changing their stance.
The actual form of the cover is quite complicated but covers a period of one year from the date of triggering the policy and twelve months hence. The formula for calculating the pay out is based on loss of income, less avoidable costs and (with an additional list of caveats) as compared with the previous twelve months.
It will effectively compare the performance of the club in the current twelve months from late February this year with the same period last year. I rather suspect that this will rumble on for some months to come. In Churchill’s word, this isn’t the end of this matter, not even the beginning of the end but it might be the end of the beginning. It is good news for the club.
The Chairman has touched on the mechanism for reopening the club. By cutting costs as hard as we could and with the extraordinary support of members in paying their fees for subscriptions and the like so promptly, we have weathered the storm better than we dared hope. But there is danger when we reopen if we do not reactivate things in a phased manner. Simply to reinstate the operation and staffing at the level we enjoyed before and incur the costs of a full seven day a week operation when we have few course bookings, little trial lesson work and an unknown requirement for weekly flying by members could easily lead us to squander our reserves at a much faster rate than when we were closed completely.
Our plan is initially to open five days a week, Wednesday through to Sunday for the first month or so, principally to give a clear run for members to fly their club aircraft as much as they want to regain currency. John Stuart will be on hand during the weekdays and the normal weekend rota of Number Ones will swing into action at the weekends. Courses and trial lessons are important to the club but members come first by a long chalk. During this month or so, we should be able to stir up enough course business to restart courses and thus seven day a week operation. If we can do it sooner, we will start the seven day operation sooner, if not, we may have to delay it a while. There is no reason why launching on Mondays and Tuesdays cannot be by aerotow if conditions are good and a happy band are assembled and ready to fly. It will be a case of cutting the sail to fit the cloth.
At the time of writing (28th June) we have an idea that the footpaths on the hill (and the club) will be open on the 7th July, but the authorities are still bickering between themselves and that date is by no means certain. So in reality, we don’t yet know how big the boat is or how much cloth we have to cut!
There will be much to do to get the club back to ship shape condition. One of our problems in managing the club recently is that we haven’t known how long we would be unable to operate or how fast our reserves would be drained away. The consequence was that we have had to take a very conservative view and stop all activity (and expenditure) at the club that we could. As a result there has been little or no maintenance or cleaning at the club whilst it has been shut. The most pressing need now is for a good clean up and your help would be greatly appreciated.
To kick start the club, we have also applied for a grant from the Rural Recovery Fund. This fund has been made available to businesses affected by FMD in the West Midlands, to help with additional marketing and promotional costs. Dominic Haughton has been working on this and we have just heard that our application has been successful. The money will certainly be useful.
Finally, you should all know now that as a thank you to everybody who has paid their subscriptions even though they have had no club to go to, and recognising that the cost of flying the fleet at Shobdon is substantial, the club will now pay your £5 per day flying subscription which we have to pay to the Hereford Gliding Club (half of which is then paid to the people who own the airfield) and additionally, all fees for flying the club fleet will be at 50% of the normal rate charged until we return to the Mynd. However, we cannot reduce the cost of the aerotow as the HGC insist that we use their pricing to protect the usage of their tug, rather than members preferentially using our own tug, which in the circumstances of our exile there, is not unreasonable.
As it says on the door of the Continental Boeing 777 I emerged from early this morning, Work Hard, Fly Right. See you soon.
David Rance
By now I am sure that most members will have come to appreciate the presence of the motor glider on the Mynd, whether for field landing, navigation training, flight training, touring or simply sending John Stuart off to sniff the wave before making that do or die dive for the wave, down wind!
When the syndicate was set up, the club was one of the founder members and put up £2800 for a one eleventh share. Club members have had excellent access to the aircraft for training and have made up a substantial element of the aircraft’s useage and income. The club is now considering selling its share in the glider to recover the capital invested in it whilst maintaining a nominal share in the aircraft for insurance and legal reasons. The intention is that it will continue to be kept in the club’s hangar and will continue to be freely available for all the training opportunities that have existed before. If anybody is interested in taking a share, please contact either Tony Danbury, Chris Ellis or myself.
Chris Ellis
When we return to the Mynd many members will not have flown for some time and there will be a concentrated effort to bring everyone back to currency as quickly as possible. To help this exercise along we intend to make the motor glider and an instructor available, as far as possible, every flying day. This an economical way of covering a wide range of exercises both in terms of time and money.
In the meantime the Falke is at Shobdon and if you have not had the joy of flying from this site, want to get a new site in you log book or just stay current contact John Stuart, Paul Garnham (01588 673838) or Chris Ellis (01691 622788). Tony Danbury (01588 640407) is cleared to do site checks but not Bronze work. We will be happy to turn out mid week or weekends.
Paul Garnham
I am siting in the POSH lounge at the front end of a block of flats called the Pride of Bilbao. It would probably go faster if it was shaped like the Guggenheim Museum, another Pride of Bilbao, glimpsed later. A pianist wearing a linen suit and a crocodile smile is playing Bizet. This 11 storey monster (the block) is dawdling south at 17 knots. I refuse to dignify it by calling it a ship. Even the captain was reluctant to do so. Certainly there is a sort of sharp end, where the POSH lounge is and where genteel people play cards and read novellas. Then there is the blunt end where other activities to do with lager and singing are mercifully confined (for the most part). We (Julian and Meg, Richard Hinley, Eddie Humphries and me) are off on a 36 hour mini-cruise to Bilbao, en route to Sta Cilia, Jaca, Pyrenees. We are told that we may see whales and dolphins but only the dolphins put in an appearance. They were a welcome sight anyway. At Bilbao FMD ‘precautions’ delayed progress while the vehicle was sprayed and we were obliged to stamp about on a bleach-soaked mat, resisting the temptation to say baaa, baaa. A uniformed official inspected Meg’s fridge for contraband Spam.
Santa Cilia is a small village about 10 km west of Jaca, itself a touristy, skiing, military town in the southern foothills of the Pyrenees. After many successful trips to Cerdanya at the eastern end of the range, we felt like a change and reports from adventurous Lasham visitors last autumn convinced us that Santa Cilia had to be visited. We were not disappointed. The airfield at Santa Cilia sits above the village. It is of recent construction, with a hard runway about 1 km long, with parallel grass and compacted gravel runways. At each end there is a deep gulley to make life and approaches more interesting. The modern airfield facilities include a clubhouse with office and briefing rooms, a bar/restaurant, a pool (not tried) and an enormous hangar. The ambience is quite remarkable. This is a French enclave in Spain. We hardly saw a Spanish national on the airfield. The entire operation is run by Serge leClerc and his wife Muriel (Muriel?!). They speak fluent French and Spanish, and English that is still much better than my French or Spanish. In effect he is the Brian Spreckley/John Stuart of the operation and seems to own it all as well. His fleet would make most clubs envious. Two Duos, a Janus, Marianne, Grob twin Acro, lots of Pegases, LS3 and more. Three tugs were available, two Robins, and a Rallye. About 20 visiting gliders were present; perhaps half were English, the other half from French Clubs plus the odd (sic) German and Dutch pilot. Miraculously Julian’s Duo 802 was waiting for us, having been brought from Ontur, much further south, by British team manager Bob Bickers. The tail dolly was missing but Serge kindly lent us one of his.
We established ourselves at the Hotel Aragon a few km away. The rooms were simple, large and with en-suite facilities. Prices were less than half the equivalent in UK. Other pilots rented houses or apartments nearby. Food at the hotel was usually taken in the barbecue, a conical kiln-like tower adjoining the bar, within which the barbecue table was central and where customers sat at tables arranged around the fire. It sounds asphyxiating (there was a hole at the top of the tower!) but in fact was a pleasurable experience due to the warmth and the smell of the barbecuing food. Among the many joys of this trip were the quality and price of the local food and wine. These contrasted sharply with the limited choice and indifferent quality found near Cerdanya on most of our jaunts. In Jaca £10 or less could provide a good three course meal with wine (Rioja is not far away). So eating out provided much added interest and pleasure (Wine or water senor? Both please).
For me one of the special pleasures of this trip was the bird life. The commonest bird in the area is the Griffon Vulture with a span of about 9 feet, with the Red Kite a close second. Seldom was either of these species out of sight and on occasions 30 or more vultures would climb in a thermal over the field. Other species of particular interest included the Egyptian Vulture, Black Kite, Hen Harrier, Honey Buzzard, Hobby. I won’t go on but there were many other species of interest if you are into that kind of thing.
Although local topography is rather similar to that found at Cerdanya there are more opportunities for exploring to the south and west, towards lower, flatter areas. Santa Cilia is about 2200 feet ASL. As with all new sites we had to fly somewhat conservatively as we became familiar with the local features. Also, it takes a while to accustom oneself again to flying in the mountains as the techniques involved are somewhat special. In essence the high point of the Pyrenees is about half way between the coasts. The tops (the highest of which rise to just over 13,000 feet) roughly identify the national boundary and very often a boundary between different weather systems too. On the Spanish side deep valleys run north-south, but the smaller mountains and foothills are complex, with many cross-valleys, gorges and isolated outcrops. To the west, towards Pamplona, the valley is more extensive and a substantial lake nestles between minor mountain chains. To the east, the foothills and mountains climb up to the high Pyrenees. During our stay there was still plenty of snow about on the mountains and some of the ski lifts were still operating. The views across the snow-clad mountain tops were stunning.
Each morning at 10:00 Serge did a briefing for ‘the rest’ followed by one for the French. Mostly this was a weather briefing using Topkarten or Microclimat.net weather, with occasional tips and explanations about flying in the region. Most days he said flying “ees possible”. Most days, flying began at about 12:30-13:30, once the French had finished lunch, but they would always launch us if we pulled onto line earlier. We flew two sorties of two to three hours each day in the Duo, mostly in thermic conditions but often with weak wave or wave influence. As professor Sodde would decree, on a day when some got to 19,000 feet, we were off touring - but that’s life isn’t it? Mostly cloud bases varied between 4000 feet and 6000 feet above site, but some people reported blue thermals to 8000 feet. One of our minor problems was that cloud base was often not quite high enough to enable fast cruising above the high peaks, so one had to make best progress by flying below them. It is always a surprise and a joy to fly in such superb conditions and in such remarkable scenery, accompanied often by the ubiquitous vultures.
On the first flight of the day, normal practice is to find a climb in thermals originating in the low foothills, the first areas to benefit from the day’s heat, and then to work one’s way up the side valleys to the tops if these are clear of cloud. If there is anything of a wind blowing, there can be some very interesting local effects in these narrow valleys, not always, but often in the direction of down. Wave effects on thermals are also commonplace. Once the day has got going, and if the tops can be reached, flying along the ridges in dynamic lift can be very exciting. Constantly updating your escape route is a must.
One day our flying was curtailed by the discovery of a flat tail wheel. On close inspection the fairing was split and even worse, the tube was totally u/s and a bearing had seized. Miraculously the local agricultural contractor, only 2 km away, had just one such bearing. We then raced to Jaca for a tube and for something to repair the fairing. Now it has to be admitted that even if we pool our commands of Spanish the result is abysmal. Somehow we coped. It is rumoured, though not confirmed, that Eddie and Richard obtained Araldite by the highly dubious, though creative, expression “dos tubos adhesivos mixos, por favor.” In short, we soon had all we needed and the glider was back on line next day.
One reminder that we were in Spain rather than France was the curious requirement that we did our radio calls in Spanish. Very curious considering that no-one Spanish was listening and all the pilots were foreigners. Hence “Ocho theero dos, viento en cola, dos siete, herba”. Now this presents a bit of a problem to the average Brit., busy putting the undercarriage down and doing other things. Some classic “Ello ello” calls were heard. Sometimes they would begin with good intent but quickly deteriorated into pidgin Spanish/English.
A rare appearance by a Spaniard (to be honest his nationality is irrelevant) gave us some amusement one day as we were waiting to launch. Flying a Cessna 172 he made an approach and aborted the landing due to glider movements. On the second approach it was clear that he was too high and too fast. He touched down over half way down the grass strip and disappeared off the end in a cloud of dust. After adjusting his composure and his trousers he commenced a slow backtrack and made a radio call that I felt compelled to translate as “backtracking 27 for ze toilet”. On other days, more interest was provided by visiting aircraft, notably a CT lightweight, the performance and quietness of which disgraced all other aircraft, and a couple of CAP aerobatic aircraft of the French team, one of whom gave a lengthy and spirited aerobatic demonstration.
On a day when we really should have been flying (wave!) we took a trip to inspect the gliding site at Monflorite, some 60 km to the south-east. This is a site that Derek Piggott wrote enthusiastically about a few years ago in S and G. The facility there is well set-up but very institutional, rather like a military base, and run by a commercial operation. The site is on a low ridge, but later Serge implied that soaring conditions in the area around Monflorite are often poor due to ingress of sea air up or down the valley of the river Ebro. We enjoyed our lunch in a howling gale on the edge of the ridge, watching the Griffon Vultures soaring by. An amazing 1,000 passed while we watched, presumably on inward migration. Other trips took us south to see the deserted monasteries of San Juan and west to the medieval hilltop village of Ujue and the ancient town of Olite, south of Pamplona.
Once again I am sitting in the POSH lounge on Pride of Bilbao. A different pianist, more of a Noel Coward this one, is bravely tinkling out songs from the shows as the bow pitches twenty feet and more into a nasty sea, stoked up by a force nine just off the bow. The ship shudders as the bow pounds, impelled onwards and downwards by 37,000 tonnes of assorted steel, vehicles, passengers, pizzas and lager crashing into the scarcely yielding waves. I glance to make sure that the grand piano is well bolted down. Frightening yet amusing visions of the whole lot flying across the lounge enter the mind. Eight storeys above the sea hardy passengers sitting in the forward facing lounge gaze transfixed at a view akin to that inside a perpetual car wash. In fact the spray is reaching well above the bridge, some 35 m above the sea.
Although certain anti-climactic elements are beginning to make themselves felt as we slide into Portsmouth some 4 hours late, in calmer circumstances the mind will always recall the best bits. It was definitely a very successful trip on all counts. Santa Cilia is rather special. We shall return.
Ann Parry
Congratulations to James Moore on his five hours, and Allan Reynolds on his Silver height, both flown from Shobdon. Lots of whizzing round the local polygon by various people, and many members off on holidays abroad, and some flying in competitions (congratulations to Rose and Iain). The windsock was raised again at the club over the weekend at the end of June, and it is good to see the signs of reawakening at the club. The hang gliders and para gliders resumed flying at the end of June. We are waiting for the foot paths to reopen, hoping it is any day now. Every now and then power planes fly by in such a manner that John and I wonder which of us with our power flying hats on has come to visit the Mynd this time? Locals have been saying that they miss seeing us flying.
Party Matters
We have a provisional date of Saturday 4th August for our reopening party. Keep the date free. The intention is to invite friends and neighbours as well as ourselves, to celebrate our reopening and existence on the hill. I am ‘launch marshalling’ this party, and am looking for help in making it a success. The hope is that we can book a band to have live music in the hangar, but it is short notice for this. Help welcome, especially nearer the time with hangar clearing and decoration, running the bar(s) etc.
Another party matter is the annual dinner and trophy presentation. Alison Rowson and I think that support for the dinner-dance has been declining. My suggestion is that we don’t have music, and have a dinner only, with trophy presentation and maybe a guest speaker, somewhere like the Feathers Hotel in Ludlow. This would cost about £20 a head for dinner, with a bar available for buying drinks. John and I went to a pleasant Beekeepers’ Society dinner at the Feathers in their function room a couple of years ago. Let me know what you think. If you want the same form of party as this year (dinner-dance) then we really need more support for it than has happened recently. To balance the formal dinner with no music, we would also have an informal summer party at the club with music. I like the idea of a barn dance, maybe with a pig roast. Sadly all the folk bands are booked or away at a festival next month, otherwise we’d do that this time.