IIDD, July 19th

Hi Sylvia and Ray!

Thanks for stunning snaps! Everyone here is more than envious of you and your sunshine and sunflowers and chateaux, especially after the rainy weekend! Saturday was very, very wet but we braved the rain and set off for Jericho at shortly after 9:00am. Cora Lee, Cactus Donna Florida took the tarps and staked out our "claim" to the right of the Main Stage while I parked the car in my friend's parkade, 5th and Highbury. Unfortunately, Imre is deteriorating rapidly and I don't know what the next few weeks, perhaps even days, hold for him. (I will return his garage clicker to him later today and will spend a bit of time visiting. I took Chris and Jim with me, to say hello, before we had them for dinner last week, and I know Imre enjoyed meeting them, if only briefly. Jim saw a soccer book on Imre's shelf and had a bit of a discussion about game. If things work out, for everyone, I'm going to ask Jim to come back as I know talking to Imre about one of his favourite sports would be a real treat.) Back at the Fest, we, (With rain, Flamin' didn't come until late afternoon, Sarge until just past noon), all went to different stages, following acts we wanted to listen to. I started off with Harp Meisters, C.R. Avery, (knew him from VIWF a few years ago), a self-described "Outlaw Hip-Hop Harmonica Player and Beatbox Poet, and Hans Theessink and Terry Evans, acoustic blues. Riveting stuff. After that, I simply wandered various stages, catching parts of acts until I settled on LaLa Blues featuring Pokey Lafarge & the South City Three, along with Dan Hicks and the Hot-Licks. First heard of latter in late sixties with a sound from the late forties so wanted to hear what the updated, reformation of original group sounded like. Dan and his two back-up female singers were more than a delight, the more so because he is such a consummate, creative, humorous performer, all of them doing many vocally challenging pieces faultlessly.

Had never heard of Pokey before and I believe he and his band were the discovery of the Festival, not just for me but for everyone who had the opportunity to watch their simply dazzling routines. From the program guide: "Pokey LaFarge is a young man from St. Louis who has dedicated himself to respecting, reviving and restoring and reconfiguring the popular music of his hometown from the inter-war era of 1918-1941." Pokey himself is a talented guitarist, brilliant, crafty wordsmith and composer with an uncanny grasp of the essence of this rich musical heritage. The South City Three are nothing short of astonishing: Adam Hoskins on guitar, (scintillating); Ryan Koenig on harmonica,(words simply cannot describe how he could make the instrument wail, his pyrotechnics had each and every audience cheering for more), and washboard; Joey Glynn on stand-up bass, (he played his instrument like I've never witnessed or heard before); everyone helped out with the vocals making them the tightest, most accomplished trio one is likely to hear anywhere! From that workshop on, I followed them whenever they performed again and could never get enough, never wanted the various workshops to end!

Between 4:00-5:00om rain finally let up and we returned to our tarp, more of a swimming pool than anything else. Given the soggy ground, we moved to the side so that we could set up our chairs without blocking the view of those behind us and drank our light, (white wine), and dark roast, (red), "coffee", nibbling on snacks, enjoying the Main Stage. Nancy was ready to go after Tim Robbins, (of The Shawshank Redemption fame), & The Rogues Gallery Band, (I enjoyed many of their numbers but unfortunately sound was off, (all of us experienced quite a few problems over course of entire weekend and this was confirmed this morning as reported in today's Sun), so it was difficult to get a true picture of their talent and ability.), so we left rest to listen to Rosanne Cash, followed by The Jayhawks.

I had a quick shower once home and then made a large salad. Phoned Imre to chat for a bit and just after I put phone down, Cactus and Coriandre returned so we sat down together to have the late, light meal. Bed pretty quickly after that as everyone was tired from spending most of the day in the rain.

Up early on SUnday to have delicious bacon/lettuce and tomatoe sandwiches for breakfast. Cora Lee had to attend an important meeting at church, (she would take bus to Festival after service and meeting), later so five of us headed back to Jericho at about 9;30am. Once again, I dropped everyone off and returned car to Imre's parkade. By the time I was back on site, Hymns for the Soul was in progress at Stage 2 so I set my chair down and was mesmerized by the spirituals and gospels belted out, (Hans Theessink & Terry Evans, Foy Vance and New Country Rehab), or movingly sung by Corinne West & Kelly Joe Phelps), the audience clapping and dancing. I said to person beside me, "This isn't a folk festival, it's a revival meting!" And it was with Hans and Terry doing "Jesus is on the mainline/Call him up and tell him what you want!"

Discovery here, for me, was Foy Vance, a more than talented soul singer/poet/ guitarist from Belfast, (shades of Van Morrison!), with his thrilling Guiding Light. His performance determined my next stage and I took in his sole performance at Stage 7 an hour or so later. Unfortunately, a number of sound checks were being done on the adjacent Main Stage and that all but overwhelmed his simply magnificent rendition of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You, an all time favourite of ours, such that we had it sung by a friend at our 25th wedding re-affirmation ceremony. Nonetheless, it was a treat to be exposed to more of his original material.

Back to hear Pokey one last time with Elliott BROOD and Wendy McNeil. Had not listened to Wendy before and was quite impressed with her haunting ballad about the Doukhobors in Canada. Once again, Pokey stole the show but since everyone played along with everyone, it was a lovely way to end afternoon. Back to re-group at the homestead where I found Cactus and Donna Florida waiting for command to start tippling! We had decided that we would set up the way we had done on Saturday so once we had put our folding chairs in position, we toasted each other and the day and enjoyed people watching. A few minutes later, Cora Lee stumbled upon as. She had spent a goodly part of the late afternoon in the Beer Garden with a friend from Trinity, crying in their beer over church politics! She gulped down my dark roast and then went to retrieve her Festival chair from last stage she had visited! When she returned, she had Sarge in tow and they joined us in tipplage. Sarge had more dark roast in the two thermoses he had in his picnic bag so we made short work of the contents, listening to La-33, a Colombian salsa band. Energetic, highly accomplished musicians but I was not all that interested or impressed by their overpowering keyboards, voices, horns and loads of percussion. Simply too loud for me at that stage of the Festival. Flasks drained we decided to break camp as it had started to drizzle reasonably heavily, (according to forecast there was to be no rain!), by then and everyone was ready to go home. Flamin' had left even earlier that afternoon and we were invited for dinner so we gathered up all our possessions and made for car. All in all, a wonderful time, in spite of inclement weather.

On Monday afternoon I stopped by your place, en route to my barber on 41st and West Blvd, to say hello to Chris and Jim to invite them for dinner, if they were interested and free. (You probably know much of this having talked to them on Skype this morning!) As it turned out they didn't have any plans so asked them to pop down around 6:30pm. I had my hair cut and then when back home called my friend Imre and he said he would be home that evening. Jim had showed me a soccer album of yours from '50's and I asked him if he would like to show it to Imre as they had chatted about soccer when I'd taken them to say hello a week or so ago. They very kindly agreed to visit again so after I'd showered and changed, I drove back to pick them up and we had another visit. I know Imre was absolutely delighted to talk about soccer with both of them, naming various British/Hungarian players/coaches and just reliving that period of international soccer. Both Chris and Jim were impressed with Imre's ability to recall names and dates of various matches and, more sadly, some of the terrible plane crashes which occurred in the '50's and '60's, involving various soccer teams. We left booklet with Imre so I hope you don't mind. I'll collect it from him over next few days or so after he's had a chance to peruse it in greater detail.

Back to our place for a wonderful dinner so it was a lot of fun. Weather was even warm and dry enough for us to start out on patio! Have to thank you for all the incredible vegetables Chris brought from your garden. I was most impressed with how it was doing when I stopped by earlier that day. Really looking forward to the leeks, in particular, as well as the beets, greens and all. We love them!

Too, too bad you couldn't have joined us this morning. For me, it was wonderful to be back in the saddle again. Picked Jim up at around 9:20am and we took Cypress to Marine and then along dike once we were over Dinsmore Bridge, as he said he'd like to ride to Steveston that way. I was worried that it might have been a bit breezy but in fact it wasn't so we sped along. Jim seemed to be enjoying himself so decided we'd return via No. 6 Road! Quite dense cloud over city as we crested CSTB and a fair bit cooler than it had been when we started out. Since Peter was not along, I took Jim up Cambie, using the excuse that I was planning to show him Queen Elizabeth Park as I thought it might be a pleasant outing for the two of them to wander the gardens and/or have a meal at Seasons. (Coincidentally, Cora Lee was actually having lunch there, with Chloë and a number of other of our friends at about the time we dipsy-doodled around the entrance off 33rd!) Then made for your place along 33rd, stopping to say hello to Chris. 60K for me but only 56.5K for James as I had 3.5K on my odometer by time I picked him up. He said he was pretty tired by ride but he certainly gave little evidence of fatigue, other than a couple of stops for water and a bite of banana, en route!

I continued on to 5th and Highbury to drop off garage clicker I'd borrowed from Imre who'd allowed us to park in his spot over Folk Fest weekend. Had a good visit with him and then made for The Island Inn, logging 71K by time I was back. Very pleased at that is longest ride I've had since we left for Okanagan.

Glad weather has improved somewhat, in England. Not sure what rest of week will hold for us. Forecast is for showers but seems to be changing, becoming sunnier and sunnier as week progresses so perhaps rain clouds will eventually disappear. Today is Cora Lee's 64th birthday, Nancy's/David's last night with us and Flamin's/Sarge's 32nd wedding anniversary so we are all going out for dinner to a new restaurant, Edibles, on Granville Island. Starting here with a couple of bottles of bubbly, Integrity, from 8th Generation Winery, near Summerland, purchased on our recent trip.

All the best for continued delights with your cuisine and exploring and shopping and last, but not least, biking! Sounds like loads of fun to date. I'll suggest Seymour to Jim for the weekend, once they're back from Victoria! Fond regards to Sylvia. Cheers, Patrizio!