Saul music festival

My mate Jules (Julian - could a chap have a more english name?!) has been going to festivals with a certain group of his mates for about the last 25 years... so it's something of an honour to be allowed to tag along and be an honorary 'one o the blokes' for a weekend. And what a weekend!

The Saul Canal boat Festival is in Gloucestershire, is little and intimate and brilliant craic! We arrived Friday night and blagged our way onto a spot at the folk club, which was held below decks on an old metal barge, which had brilliant accoustics and - as we learned when a jet of water streamed onto the stage - a leaky tarp! Still - we had lovely feedback and one of the real performers thought I was someone famous before the weekend was out. Shucks!

But the star attractions were still to come: the big names included the likes of James Fagan and Nancy Kerr (well known to the Half Moon set and due at Oxford folk club next weekend to plug their awesome new CD), rising stars Jackie Oates and Pete Taylor, medieval musicianists Horses Brawle, Ray Moore (probably no relation to Christy, but also an Irishman), and Jules and the lads' favourites - Show of Hands. But my favourite new find of the weekend was the o-so-composed Ruth Notman (below), who at just 18 has an A-level in music and 5 years' experience singing in folk clubs around Nottingham. Wow. Jules was wowed too - but more by the stunning good looks of Ruth's cellist Rachel... I did try to remind him that these lasses are only 5 years older than his students, but the man was undeterred...He wasn't the weekends biggest dork, however. Having drunk 10 pints of cider during Sunday, I proceeded to make a complete twat of myself trying to be fascinating around Steve Knightley (Willz, I'm sorry!). On the upside, I spent even more on CDs than I had on ciders...ah well.

The other advantage of this festival is that it's held just up the road from Jules' mate Dean's house. Dean's house used to be a pub - about 400 years ago - and still has its own taproom and bar, where the boys can smoke inside, every liqueur and spirit you can imagine is lying in the rack, and beer is bought in by the keg for weekends like this one! So we were able to drive in and out of the gig each day, wading through mud at times but as all venues were under cover - who really cared!To cap the weekend off, I had a divine half price head massage just as the sun came out on Sunday, and the best Thai curry I have yet found in England - for less than 4 quid. Could it get better than this? Only if Ants were here!