The sound of Bluegrass is drifting through the air & I can’t help conforming the clatter of these keys to it’s strong 2/4 pulse.

Joey the golden retriever is in heaven after his usual meal was augmented by some of the leftover gravy from last night’s lamb roast. Steve is lounging on the Duffs spare bed with a copy of The Da Vinci Code in his hand (getting hooked I fear before I have even gotten half way through!) & Bluegrass Parkway have resumed their rehearsal after tea & biccies. We are staying here just three days before the end of our amazing three-week stint in WA. I don’t even know how to begin to relay the highlights. I think I’ll just let a haphazard bunch of sentences dribble from my dazed fingers.

Margaret River brings memories of being taught by little Georgina how to flip coasters with the back of my hand & catch them, before taking to the stage with my first ever W.A. Dream Seat comprising of Dave Hyams, Paul Gioia, Reuben Kooperman & Steve Vella. I was so sure that we would be playing to nobody (I have never been to the area before) but the people just kept arriving & we started playing our set to a nicely occupied room. It was hard going at first (due to our bellies being a little too full of spinach & ricotta cannelloni whipped up by Steve & I on arrival) but it developed into a great set- the highlight being an instrumental blues that Paul just blazed through. The next morning’s bacon & eggs & mushroom & toast with Reuben’s award winning tangelo marmalade & strawberry jam were equally memorable.

Kulcha was an awesome experience. People just kept coming in until there had to be over a hundred & the band played SO WELL! Big thanks to Stephanie for beautiful violin & harmonies & to Paul for learning Angels Wings so well. It was a little tricky to keep my composure after Paul accidentally described me as a ‘fantastic machine’ (instead of ‘musician’) in his introduction, & I unfortunately had only reached song number four before I realised I wanted to pee & still had almost an hours worth of music still to play. I made it through without incident & felt very deserving of a shared slice of honeycomb cheesecake later on at Gino’s where we made artworks on the table-top with sugar & sold CD’s to strangers in the early hours of the morning...

The next morning I was in charge of breakfast as I had cheerfully lost a bet with Steve that there would be less than 30 in the audience. I have never enjoyed losing a bet this much!

Araluen is a real gem of a festival & I felt honoured to be featured there alongside a couple of my singing heroes Chris While & Kavisha Mazzella. We met up with the Bicton mafia almost immediately who looked after us all weekend (wine glasses always miraculously full?!) & managed to indoctrinate me into a fraternity of Dockers supporters. I now have a genuine Dockers beanie & have almost perfected the accompanying ‘long-suffering’ facial expression. The Beatles night was another fun affair where the highlight was playing the beautiful ‘Because’ from Abbey Road. More fun was had the next night when I was asked to MC the Blind Date concert. I gave myself the challenge of inventing histories for each act while they set up (every thing from trios being brought together by their mutual love of Ikea, to The Bi-Polar Bears- a trio from Spitzenbergen who were sponsored by Scandinavian Mental Health). I’m glad there were only 8 acts! My performance of ‘Maids When You’re Young Never Wed an Old Man’ with Warren Fahey was something of a rarity & probably should remain that way.

The absolute performance highlight of the whole WA trip thus far came on Monday when I had the tremendous honour of being part of a ‘Women in Folk’ theme concert. It featured Chris While, Kavisha Mazella, Ros Barnes, the crazy girls from Doris, Steph & the late inclusion of Carol who was discovered the previous night at the blind date concert & took everyone’s breath away with her version of ‘Georgia on my Mind". How incredible it was to swap songs & stories with these women & to be invited to accompany them on bass & in turn have their voices swelling behind mine. It was two & half hours long & felt like twenty minutes- I’m sure we could have sang all day! There was a couple of surprise guests that I hope someone got a photograph of. Firstly Ros introduced Stephania Barnes who was resplendant in a lime green skirt & head scarf. Slightly more recognisable in a brown skirt & lace edged top & five o’clock shadow was my special guest accompanist- Stella Vella. (insert wolf whistle here)

Well it’s getting a little chilly in this part of the house & tomorrow we are gathering our belongings together in anticipation of saying good bye to the west. There is still another house concert & a guest spot at the Fly by Night before Sunday’s plane comes for us. Thank you W.A. You have always welcomed me with such warmth. x