Before I lived in the caravan I once sat on Paul and Rebecca’s carpet in a dark oil painting night among music stands and paper score while the Gypsy Band rehearsed. Hats and pipes and fiddle bows flicked in firelight and shadow, and feet beat out old fast rhythms spinning time and music and spirit.

There are many musicians round here, they play in secret rooms and fiddledy pubs or loud crashing ones.

I met Christine in August when we were both on a course learning Welsh. On the last day she played the violin and sang with a clear voice that crossed centuries and stayed with me for hours. This week she came by the oil lamp caravan with Ceri, for tea and flapjack on their way to the gig where later we watched them perform on a red shabby stage. They wove Welsh with English, fiddle with pipes and told tales of bards and wolves. Music and poetry whirled and pulsed, feet beat old rhythms on wood, a tweed jacket was slung on a chair.

We went home on the bus with music in our heads and listened to the rhythm of the stream.

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