Our News..
Well what an exiting year we had last year. After we both made our home together, (nearly 5 years now) we began making plans for our future. Whilst playing music together was and still is, a major part of our life, we both had our own personal ‘wish list’… So, we started to plan, after being fed up with our ‘day’ jobs quit and worked towards building new careers doing something we enjoyed completely.
Most of you already know, Ken is now gaining a fantastic reputation as a Luthier and it’s wonderful to see his success growing, with many fine musicians playing his instruments all over the world.
I’ve loved ‘playing’ with various crafts & things, and a few years ago discovered I particularly enjoyed sugar paste and royal icing cake craft. So after 2 years at college training, learning the craft properly, I gained the qualifications to produce fine wedding cakes and celebration cakes and am about to launch a small cake dec business called ‘forget-me-not-cakes’.
Both of us have always had a love of the outdoors and the mountains for a very long time and longed to live somewhere we could enjoy taking them in on a more regular basis, by walking them or working the them in the garden, growing our own veg, keeping a few chickens etc. At last, we could sleep to the silence of the night and the odd hooting owl, instead of listening to the M67 whizzing by at silly time in the morning and the jumbo jets flying over the house, rattling the pots and pans off the wall!
Finally we decided to leave the corporate job world behind to try and make a humble living doing these few things for ourselves before time caught up and we couldnt do it anymore. Last year we went for it and moved to Wales! A little village of no more than 36 houses near Lake Vyrnwy, with millions of stars and the sound of a birds wing passing you, breaking through the silence instead of the jumbo! We can prepare the soil for our first year of growing things properly, the ex-battery hens are ordered and move in with us early April and thats that!
Mables in shock as the house has got smaller and her hiding places have gone, the gardens got bigger and she’s not too sure what those woolley things with 4 legs are at the back of the house in the next field. Ken’s workshop is at the back of the garden and she’s not happy about walking across the garden to find him at all!
Does this mean no more playing music again we hear you ask..?…..Not a chance !
The best part with the music scene, is firstly indulging in something you love doing, which goes without saying really. Everyone you meet are super, both fellow performers and audience, some of which become firm friends and in general the lifestyle is brilliant and although damned hard work, extremely satisfying and wholesome. But..anyone who has involvement in folk and acoustic music will know, unless you are very lucky, you most certainly won’t earn enough to grant a rich retirement for your ‘silver’ days and whilst you have a fantastic time having a go, will need to earn something extra to keep the food on the table. So the next best thing is to try and work doing something else equally enjoyable. We gave up playing music for a fews years before and missed it too much. No, we will continue to play as long as people and clubs will have us.?
That’s us, where we are now. Time will tell our fate. We work hard at it, and the days will sometimes be long but we wouldn’t change it for the world.
We will keep you posted !
Ruth and Ken