Current hobbies and obsessions

For the past several years, I've been playing recorder again. I'm a (family, with my wife, Margaret, and daughter, Marie) member of the Warwick branch of the Society of Recorder Players, which meets once a month for a fairly informal play through some music, ranging from mediaeval to modern.

We also have weekly (or as near as we can manage to weekly) sessions with a smaller group at home, playing one to a part on music for up to about eight players.

Several years ago, my grandfather, who was a fiddler in the North-East of Scotland left me one of his fiddles. Rather more recently, I started learning to play it, and have been taking lessons since about 2000, along with my daughter. Trying to keep up with her used to motivate my practise, but I'm beginning to suspect that I'll need another motivation shortly.

Combining the two instruments, I play in an early music group which meets on Monday evenings, and is run by Val Brodie. We mostly play renaissance music, on a variety of instruments: I mostly play recorder and violin, and am occasionally prevailed on to play crumhorn or sing. The group also includes a variety of period instruments.