Lorient

I went down to Lorient on saturday hoping to catch up with Derek & Mabon again but the Palais des Congrés was full, which allowed me to go up the hill to the Gilles Servat concert, one of THE names in Breton music, only problem, 30 euros for a concert is over my budget, not that I have a budget, fortunately the people on the door knew me and made an exception; strange that Gilles Servat seems to believe that 'Wild Rover' is an Irish song, but most Bretons categorize that and 'Dirty Old Town' as Irish when 'Wild Rover' is from the English West Country and 'Dirty Old Town' is about Salford in metropolitan Manchester, in his repertoire was a song about the Welsh miners helping their Galician counterparts during the Spanish civil war that I hadn't heard before. I stayed overnight in my now trusty car and sleeping bag, thinking of trying again for Mabon's next concert but there were too many people; here I apologize to Derek for not having created a situation for meeting socially between gigs; anyway I went up to the Tavarn ar Roue Morvan where my nephew Glenn was playing the drums, a marvellous evening, great music, good atmosphere, and what a boy! he was playing with the pipes & drums in the afternoon, with a group on the quay at night , and in the pub later at night with a different 'ensemble'. I met many great friends over the week-end, alll in all a tonic for my morale. I don't know what the situation is with Wales, and I know it doesn't help that the Eisteddfod usually coincides, but we were generally absent, being the only member without a pavilion; I espied David Peterson and entourage but I've been told that he isn't directly involved anymore and that the man who organized the Pavilion in 'Wales' year has disappeared? it would be a shame if these things couldn't be overcome! Through facebook I'm re-living 40 years past, yet paradoxically so many grown ups are coming on to me informing me that they are the children of my good friends, if I hadn't had a good look in my rear mirror the other day, I'd find it hard to believe them. Ah well, I'm now one week in to my 60th year! I wasn't going to mention names because there's always a risk of leaving somebody out, but Sofi le Hunsec graciously gave me a c.d. of her new album 'Lomener'.