Live Music and a Short Walk

Today was Sunday, and Aprille does a weekly bluegrass gig at the pub in Longnor called The Olde Cheshire Cheese. The ensemble is five musicians, and one of them, Steve, came over in the morning to practise with Aprille. We sat in and listened, which was delightful. Then we had lunch together and learned all sorts of interesting things about Steve. He's canoed more rivers in the Yukon and Northwest Territories than most anyone I know in Canada; and before that he was a mountaineer in Europe and Canada. He's also frequently in the US at bluegrass festivals. He'll be going over in a couple months to canoe the Yukon from Whitehorse to Dawson, and to hike the Chilkoot Trail. Yikes!

After lunch we went to the Olde Cheshire Cheese. They were playing outside, so we sat out in the sun and drank ginger beers while we listened. The pub owner came out and did a couple astounding card tricks for Galen. The card kept appearing under my drink, on on the top of the deck, or on his forehead. It turns out he is a professional magician! None of us wanted to play poker with him later.

After about an hour and half of live music, we set out on a short walk from Longnor. Galen was navigator in charge: he was the only one with a map, and the only one who looked at the map. He led us on a footpath south along the Manifold River for about a kilometre, and back on a higher, parallel track. Great job! It was, as Kate said, a home-educator's dream: your kid takes the map and decides he wants to figure it all out by himself, and does a good job. (Reading a footpath map is an interesting hybrid of topographic map and road map-type reading. There is a network of paths, but they're largely invisible on the ground except for the stiles and gates; so it's easy to stray off the path into the wrong parts of fields. We met a couple of large groups of high-school-age girls: they had backpacks, and it seemed they were on the last leg of a trip. perhaps for an outdoor pursuits class?

Back at the grange we made dinner for Aprille, and had another nice meal together.