Jacey Bedford's Journal

Just caught up with the news that Goderich Ontario, where there's an excellent festival in early August that we've played a number of times, got hit by a tornado last Sunday. It trashed the town centre where we've spent many happy hours with friends hanging out between music sessions.


Best wishes to all our friends there. I hope you're OK.

The saga of the US(less)Airlines, she is not yet over...

So on Monday morning we pack our suitcases, leave the hotel in Owen Sound and go and have one last breakfast at Boots and Blades (3 eggs over-easy, bacon, home-fries and toast) call in to see Sharon and Connor on the way 'home' (Steve is already at work but we said our goodbye's yesterday) and head for Nigel and Clarisse's in Toronto to repack everything for the flight out on Tuesday. It's a three hour drive with no major traffic trauma. Tuesday morning there's a modicum of last minute shopping. Hilary can't get those quilted red wellies out of her head, and she's made room in her suitcase. Brian reckons a few more pairs of jeans won't hurt. Then it's packing and weighing and re-packing until the bags don't appear to exceed 50 pounds each and we're off to the airport to return the rental car and get through check-in and American immigration and customs (they do it in Toronto before you leave). Everything's going so well...

However.., US Airways does it to us again. We're connecting to the Manchester flight in Philadelphia as before, but this time we only have an hour and a half. It should be OK. We now know Philadelphia arport pretty well. We should arrive at Terminal F, go to Gate 10, take the shuttle bus to Terminal A and then walk the whole length of the terminal to Gate A25. We clear US customs and immigration in Toronto with plenty of time to spare, go and get a drink and a Tim Horton's doughnut (Honey Cruller - highly recommended) and go to the gate early. The flight is showing 'on time'. Lovely. It's due out at 5.40 p.m. About 4.50 I go to the loo and glance at the board. Oh, bloody hell, the flight's now showing 30 minutes delay. Buggeration! Well there's not much we can do. It still gives us an hour at the other end.

The plane eventually arrives. We all board, strap in, settle down and then the pilot announces that because we've missed our timeslot on the runway we may have to wait for clearance to take off. We sit on the bloody runway for another 30 minutes. It's OK, the attendant says. We can still do the transfer in 30 minutes if we're quick. Our connecting flights (it's not just the Manchester flight, of course) have been alerted and they'll (probably) wait. Yeah. Right!

OK, 30 minutes is still possible.

So we're 40 miles out of Philadelphia when the plane get sent round the block again - in a ruddy great stack, bleeding off time and more time. We eventually land at 8.30 and our Manchester flight leaves at 8.44 from the farthest point in the farthest terminal. Hilary has to wait for her cabin baggage to be returned to her because it was too big for the overhead lockers on the small plane from Toronto. My foot's had enough by this time and it slows me down, so Brian and I start hoofing it as fast as we can, figuring that Hilary will be a lot faster than I will once she's got her bag. We get to the shuttle bus and start to load. Still no Hilary. The bus moves off. She's missed the first shuttle. Brian and I get to Terminal A and start out for Gate 25 which is so far away we can't see it. We're just following signs. They're calling all remaining passengers for our flight, Boarding has officiall closed but they're still holding the gate open. I can't walk any faster, but the gate is now in sight. 'Go, run!' I tell Brian. Tell them we're here. We're coming. Try and keep the gate open.' He shoulders his backpack and trots off. I see he's got to the gate. Good. They can hardly close it on him now. I come puffing up to the gate. We both show our passports and they say they're going to have to close the gate. They can't wait for Hilary. Neither Brian nor I make a move for the skybridge. 'She's coming. She's right behind us, on the next shuttle from Terminal F,' we tell them. 'She's a minute or two away at most.' I make a show of needing to get my breath back, but in truth it's only show. Brian steps out into the concourse to see if he can spot her. Miracle of miracles, there she is, haring down the corridor, wheelie bag in tow. They have to wait now.

And they do.

Of course, once we get on the plane - still shaking from the exertion - we've another half an hour while they load our luggage, but that's OK. I'm honestly resigned to having it follow us on another flight, but they load the bags and away we go. The rest of the flight is mercifully uneventful.

5th - 8th August: Lunenburg pics (see yesterday's post)

Hilary outside our billet at Lunenburg


Our friends Nigel and Clarisse in Toronto

11th August: Houseconcert, Toronto

For those not familiar with houseconcerts - these are a North American phenomenon where houses tend to have more open space than UK homes. Usually held on a midweek night as a filler between concert dates, the householder, invites people (and some concerts in larger houses seat 70 - 100 people depending on the place). It's basically a private party. There are no set ticket prices because that would mean the householder is using their home for commercial purposes which might invalidate insurance and contravene local bylaws, but there's a 'strongly recommended' donation of not less than $x, all of which goes to the performer. Visitors often bring food/cookies etc. to share, so there's a nibbles buffet, too. The householder gets an up-close-and-personal performance by his/her favourite performers and the performer fills an off-night and usually gets accommodation too. In this case we already have somewhere to stay, but the gig is still very welcome.

It's sold out well in advance. Full room. After a few fresh days on the coast at Lunenburg, the Toronto weather is once more excruciatingly hot and sticky, and with 40 people crammed in, the house is hot and sticky, too, even with the aircon on full. They leave the back door open for a bit of breeze, but unfortunately it lets in a mosquito. I'm A-grade mozzie-bait, and come up in huge purple welts if bitten, so every time it comes near me I'm dodging about. We try hard, but energy levels may be a little lower than usual because of the heat. I hope it doesn't show. The audience is clearly having a good time. Lovely to see so many friendly faces. Our host is David Warren who was the artistic director of Mariposa Festival and gave us our first ever gig in Canada back in 1994 when the event was briefly on Olympic Island in Toronto. There's Gord from the Flying Cloud, and Steve and Anne, and also Eileen who we met on our very first trip over. At least two people have come from the USA... just to see us... both travelling long distances. We are once again humbled.

Nigel and Clarisse come. Nigel brings his new digital video camera and films it all. Hopefully we'll be able to upload it somewhere before too much longer.

Plenty of shopping in Toronto from lowest common denominator places like Zellers, Dollarama and Wally-World (Wal-Mart) to the delightful independent shops and boutiques on Queen East at the Beaches. Brian gets jeans, jeans, jeans and more jeans. At that price how could he not? $14 for Wranglers - that's about £10. I get some new shirts and T-shirty, drapy things plus some of those rocker-shaped Scholl's sandals and a pair of purple sneakers. Hilary has a field-day in a fabulous little boutiquey shop on Queen, which has lots of floaty, drapey, baggy things in murky colours with asymmetrical hemlines and unusual tucks and shapes. OK, I confess, I bought one, too.

14th August: Aeolian Hall, London, Ontario

With Steve Ritchie and Al Parrish, lately from Tanglefoot, doing the opening spot for us this is a gig I'd have paid to do. The Aeolian is a privately owned concert hall, a fabulous building that was once London's town hall. We met up with Al and his son Ashton (age 8-ish) for dinner before the show, but Steve couldn't join us because he's recently got a more-than-full-time job doing technical stuff at the radio station in Owen Sound where he does his Thursday night 'Hundred Mile Music Show'. We stay for one night with Bill and Kenna and their granddaughter (and Sheltie dog) and then depart for Steve, Sharon and Connor's house in Chatsworth, just south of Owen Sound. More visiting, more shopping, both in Owen Sound, and a fascinating trip to Keady market - a huge outdoor cattle-market, farmers' market and general market which takes us 2 hours to walk around, there's so much to see (and buy).

18th August: Houseconcert, Grey Highlands Ontario

An amazing house, seemingly in the middle of nowhere (but not really). It always boggles me when some of Canada's highways are gravel rather than tarmac. I feel as though I'm going up a farm track - but no, they're real roads. Glad we've got directions, though. Apparently if you try and use a satnav it dumps you in the middle of the woods. We're fed royally before the gig and then perform in front of a huge, pointy picture window that looks out across woodlands. There are fans who've travelled up from Orangeville and neighbours who don't know us from Adam. A lovely mix. And Gord's here again.

Then there's just one more day to spend with the Ritchies before moving into the Travelodge, the hotel where all the performers stay for Summerfolk Festival at Owen Sound. Unfortunately I bend over to fold a shirt for my suitcase and feel my back go sproing. 'It's then I discover the delights of Robax (robaxicet) a muscle relaxant combined with various painkillers - in my case ibuprohen. It's not available over the counter in either the USA or the UK, but it's brilliant stuff. It stops my back from spasming in next to no time and lets it fix itself over the next few days. It even seems to help my foot. With that and the stretches from Clarisse (and a bit of careful planning) my foot isn't too bad over the course of the festival

20th - 22nd August: Summerfolk Festival, Owen Sound, Ontario




One of our favourite festivals. It's all contained on one site at Kelso Beach Park in Owen Sound, which fronts on to Georgian Bay, that part of Lake Huron that's like an ear-shape, separated form the main lake by the Bruce Peninsula. We played Summerfolk on our very first trip to Canada, some 16 years ago. Back then the lake came right up to the backstage area where the performers all eat and socialise. Then the lake level dropped and invasive rushes grew up and made the lake invisible from the shore. This year, although the water level is still low, they've cut the rushes back so you can see the lake again. It's a lovely setting, with a purpose-built stage facing a purpose-built amphitheatre which seats approximately 4000 on blankets and lawn chairs on the concentric terraces. As well as being a music festival it's an arts and crafts festival with lots of lovely and unusual goodies to buy.

We do our big concert on the Friday night at 9.00 p.m. just after it turns fully black. With sound by Steve Darke and his brilliant crew, we know we're in excellent hands. The stage end is handled by volunteers, but experienced ones and all under the competent direction of an experienced (longstanding) stage manager, a technical manager and a monitor engineer on side-stage. Everyone gets their own stage hand to take them on and plug them in and line-check them if necessary. There are no sound-checks for anybody (no exception) and turnaround time is rarely more than 5 minutes (with a 'tweener' on side-stage singing one song to keep the audience warm). If the act needs a drum-kit there's a roll-on platform so the drums can set up backstage behind a curtain. It's all so very smooth and well managed.

Onstage pics at Summwerfolk by John Fearnall (www.goodnoise.ca) Used with permission.







We have 35 minutes. Right from the instant we step out on to the main stage we're flying. It's an amazing experience when you have those moments of complete clarity, knowing that you're on top of your game and the audience is with you and you're not going to put a tonsil wrong.

Friends at Summerfolk L to R: Al Parrish and Rob Ritchie (Tanglefoot) and their wives, Ande Ritchie and Wendy Pearl

The rest of the weekend is a mixture of workshops, which in a Canadian festival means not a teaching workshop, but more of a round-robin concert, with a bunch of performers taking turns. We have a good time in the harmony workshop, which we host, though quite what we're supposed to sing in the 'pub tunes' workshop, I'm not sure. We shoehorn some songs into it and guess well when we do Neil Young's 'After the Gold Rush'. They love it. Neil Young is a Canadian god. On Sunday we do the Folksingers Without Guitars workshop, which is a gift for us because it means we can do anything from our repertoire.

Weather is cooler and damp, with rain showers that don't drive away the audience, thank goodness. They just wrap up in plastic and sit it out.

Wet Sunday Morning at Summersoak

We've been asked to sing 'Mary Ellen Carter' - traditionally Summerfolk's finishing song - on the big finale with Len Wallace, accordionist, left wing activist and singer. We did it in 1994, totally intimidated by having Ariel Rogers there (Stan Rogers' widow) and Al, (Stan's dad), but now Ariel seems like an old friend. It's lovely to see her again. She's been sick but seems to be well on the way to recovery. Fingers crossed.

We get together with Len to rehearse, and Grit Laskin - performer and wizard luthier and inlay artist - joins us, playing the distinctive riff that opens the song in accompanied versions, and which Grit actually had a hand in creating. (Diddle-iddle-um. Diddle-iddle-um-dum. Diddle-um-dum. Dun-dum-dum, Dum-DUM-dum-dum-dum....) That's settled. Grit's in on it, too, so the five of us are doing the last festival song with all the performers and volunteers on stage with us. We wait backstage for Lennie Gallant to finish his set and then we're up and running. Mose Scarlett sings Goodnight Irene and then we're on: Diddle-iddle-um. Diddle-iddle-um-dum. Diddle-um-dum. Dun-dum-dum, Dum-DUM-dum-dum-dum... and Hilary's into the first verse, good and strong. Good job we can hear her acoustically because with this kind of crowd on stage no one gets monitors. She can hear Grit, Brian and I can hear her. Len must be able to hear Grit, too because he's in there, too with the accordion and it's wild. The volunteers and performers behind us start stamping, clapping and singing along. Any chance of holding the speed steady is lost, we've got a monster on the loose behind us. They drive us all on until the song's going like an express train, but nobody hits a bum note or fluffs a word. We finish and the crowd goes nuts, then the folks on stage part, and the audience out front parts, and a Highland piper, the same one who's been playing for 35 years at this festival, starts up at the back. Dark Island. He walks steadily off the front of the stage through the crowd and we all follow, two by two, doing the shaking hands or high five thing with the audience as we go. It's a WOW moment. One of those memories to treasure.

US Airways = Useless Airways, They buggered up the outgoing flight completely, or at least the conncection at Philadelphia. We flew from Manchester, had possibly the worst food I have ever tried and failed to eat on an airplane and then had a planned 6 hour wait at Philly for a Halifax, Nova Scotia, flight.

So customs and immigration take about an hour - yes even though you are only transiting to Canada you have to collect your bags from the transatlantic flight, complete an American ESTA (electronic immigration form) before flying from the UK and do the whole 'Why are you visiting the United States?' thing, even though you're not actually visiting.

Then after exploring Philadelphia Airport from Terminal A to Terminal F - even with food stops (orange chicken and noodles, yum!) it's barely more than a distraction of more than two hand a half hours - we end up sitting at our gate for departure to Halifax for a couple of hours waiting for our 9.15 p.m. flight. (I had a book.) So at about 8.45 p.m. they start to check our passports, ready (we assume) for boarding. Then when they're halfway through the line the word filters out that the flight has been cancelled due to a storm at Halifax. There's no announcement as such, but word flies round fast. Go to the customer services desk in the main concourse, the gate staff tell us. We know there's going to be a huge lineup so we grab our carry-on bags (the checked luggage having gone on to the transit belt after the stop at customs) and we sprint. Even with my gammy foot (plantar fasciitis - ouch) we make it ahead of the crowd.

Yes there's apparently a storm at Halifax, they say, even though Philly itself is hot and dry, though very humid (like breathing soup). There's also another flight queuing up with ours - apparently there's also a storm between Philly and San Francisco.

No, they won't pay for overnight accommodation because they don't do that for bad weather, only for delays due to something they are responsible for, but they'll give us a number of a last-minute hotel service with 'the best rates' so we can get our head down for a few hours and they'll rebook us on the ten a.m. flight... err no they won't... it's already full between the clerk checking once, talking to us, and trying to grab us three seats. The best she can do is a 6.15 a.m. flight out to Boston and a connection from Boston to Halifax with barely 45 minutes to change planes (and terminals) at Logan Airport. We are not optimistic about the connection, we've been to Logan before and it was a building site, but the next available flight after that isn't until 6.00 p.m. and we have a 2.00 p.m. gig at Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival.

So we take the 6.15 a.m. flight and the number for the hotel booking service and then discover that we need 50 cents now for a local call (it was 25 cents last time we were there). So we scrabble for coinage. Luckily Hilary had a couple of American quarters.

The best we can do is $69 plus tax for each of two rooms and we catch the steamy hotel shuttle without benefit of luggage. Thankfully I have my (diabetic) medication with me and a clean pair of knickers and socks in my hand luggage, but no change of outer clothes and in the choking, sweaty heat they are rapidly getting not nice to be near.

One bright spot. The hotel has free internet and my skype phone credit is topped up, so I try to call Debs, the transport person from Lunenburg Festival, so that her chap who's supposed to collect us at 11.30 p.m. in Halifax doen't set off. I'm thwarted. Because of the hour's time difference, my 10.00 p.m. is Nova Scotia's 11.00 p.m. and her cellphone is already switched off. So pickup guy has a wasted journey, two hours drive each way. He actually set out before the flight was cancelled. I leave a message on Deb's phone and on the festival office phone to tell them what's happened and what time we're getting in and hope that there will be someone else to pick us up in the morning.

We check the TV weather channel in the hotel room and we can see the thunderstorm between Philly and San Francisco, but Halifax looks calm. What storm?

The hotel alarm call comes at 4.00 a.m., barely five hours after we've fallen into bed, drugged with exhaustion. We get downstairs in yesterday's clothing to find that some other bloody arsehole of a passenger has kidnapped our booked 4.30 a.m. airport shuttle and gone off at 4.20 telling the manager he was the one who'd booked it. Bloody charming. May all his future flights be delayed. But we grab the shuttle bus on its return with a family heading for San Francisco and similarly doing an overnight without benefit of checked luggage and get to the airport for 5.00 a.m, which is what we were aiming for anyway.

Joy and Bliss. The 6.15 a.m. flight departs on time. Now the staff are telling us it wasn't a storm at Halifax last night, it was fog. Make up your minds, guys. Get your story straight.

And amazingly we make the connection at Logan even though we have to go through yet another set of security gates and I get singled out for one of the new naked photo booth checks (the ones where they basically x-ray your clothes off you). Nice. I can have the pat down if I prefer. No, go ahead, give the staff a good laugh. I don't have to look them in the face afterwards. i don't even let myself wonder whether they have lady peeping toms on the other end of the machine, or not.

So we get to Halifax, a nice little airport, and it's still only 9.30 a.m. even though our watches have gone forward an hour again. We don't need work permits for Canada because we're 'cultural performers' i.e. not playing bar gigs and taking jobs away from Canadian musicians, but we still have to stop off at the immigration office and present our festival contracts to prove the whole not-playing-bar-gigs thing, and to get a temporary work permit stamp to make us all nice and legal. I have all the paperwork. It isn't a problem.

So at the immigration office there are two men (not together) in front of us and one is taking forever. There's only one girl on duty. The passengers who came in on the same flight - who were all last night's cancellees and with whom we have bonded by now - all try and follow us into the lineup. No guys, go ahead, this is only for people who are working in Canada. Bye. Have a nice trip. Half an hour passes and eventually guy number one leaves and guy number two steps froward. Time passes. We can see the arrivals hall. It's completely empty.

The officer who checked our passports and sent us to this lineup, telling us it wouldn't take long, saunters up the corridor and looks surprised. 'You still here?' We shrug. 'Yep.' 'You sure you're not playing bar gigs?' 'Nope.' We know the rules. We're playing Canadian festivals and unlike English festivals, they're dry. He takes our passports, stamps them and says, 'OK, off you go!' We skip off to the baggage hall grateful for small mercies, knowing that would never happen in the USA, to find all the other passengers have gone and our three bags - together with one that must belong to the guy still at the immigration desk - piled neatly in a corner.

Now all we have to hope for is that there's someone beyond the barrier with a card saying Artisan on it.

Well, she hasn't got a card but she pounces on us as we exit the baggage hall with that perculiarly North American pronunciation of Artisan which sounds like ARdizn. It's Deb herself. No she didn't get the message, but she figured we'd be arriving around tennish so she came anyway - and the office had called her while she was in transit with our message from last night. She'd almost been about to leave since the last passenger off the plane had said there was no one still in there. We explained about the immigration log jam. She might need to know that another year.

She's starving and so are we. We stop off at Tim Hortons just outside the airport. Luckily Hilary has had the foresight to change enough Canadian dollars. I haven't because the festival has arranged to pay us in cash at the beginning of the weekend and I reckon nothing to losing money on changing English to Canadian and then Canadian to English at the end of the tour.

It's about an hour and a half to Lunenburg. We eventually arrive 20 minutes before our 2.00 p.m. gig and have to do it in the clothes we've been travelling in for 48 hours. It's blazing hot, unusually humid for Lunenburg (on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia) and the gig is ooutside at the Fisheries Museum without a PA. I tell you, it doesn't matter how tired we are, we are in no danger of falling over because our clothes can now stand up by themselves.

Luckily the Artisan fans have turned up to welcome us and we're shredded, but not too shredded to deliver the goods.

As a PS to all this, the chap who did turn up to the airport at 11.30 p.m. to meet the original flight that was supposedly cancelled for a storm said: 'What storm?' So we're left wondering if the airline cancelled the plane and just told us it was a storm to save themselves paying for all our accommodations.

And the kicker is that our travel insurance company will not pay out for the accommodation (even though there was an overnight stay involved) because the delay insurance doesn't kick in unless there's a 12 hour delay. The flight we were due to fly out on was 9.15 p.m. and the flight we did fly out on was 6.15 a.m. Bummer.

This post was titled 'Bad Flights, Good Gigs'. The good gigs bit will have to wait until the next post. I'm exhausted just re-living all that vicariously through the keyboard.

Canada was amazing... more soon