3rd January - Tai Chi Convention, St Albans

Tai Chi Club - Our most stretching gig yet (gerrit?)

We played for a group of Tai Chi teachers who had come together from around the world for a conference in St Albans. A very nice and welcoming group of people - very keen to party after being involved in serious study for the previous week. Along with a local choir master talking on the history of plain song, we were there to give the overseas visitors an introduction to some of the music of the Bitish Isles and France. We did 25 minutes worth and it was very well received. Perhaps a little out of practice given the summer festiviites, I seemed to get through Maid of Culmore with rubber fingers and the occasional jazz chord, but we were really motoring by the end. We did our new version of Three Bonny Ships, with Rob on Mandola, and it worked well. Our Dutch friend Joop, who was convenor for the conference, played percussion with us and 'the jive was jumpin'.