February 2009

Hi Everyone,

A new year and some exciting adventures ahead. Though Ciaran and I feel we've had enough excitement for a while after struggling by train and car through the recent snow blizzards to reach hospital gigs in the north of Scotland!

Jacynth and I have been busy fundraising since the last blog - sponsored sings, dance workshops, ceilidhs etc. Ciaran helped me with a sponsored sing at the home of Margaret Gillies Brown which turned into a hilarious concert of 2 hours and 40 mins while we sang every request imaginable until we reached our target of 50 songs. All of this has been to raise enough money for Caim to go to Thailand to sing at the Burmese Refugee Camps. (Ciaran said he did it to get rid of me for while!) We now have well over £1000 raised and are ready to go whenever the partners of CSW say they are ready for us. This will most likely be now in our autumn, after the rainy season has passed in the Thai jungle.

Meanwhile we have a month's tour planned for April in Wisconsin, USA (see www.cluniemusic.com and www.myspace.com/celticcaim for gigs) and another US tour in Florida in September/October.

June 14/16 weekend Caim have been invited to sing a bit nearer home for a World Community of Christian Meditation (WCCM) conference in Stirling University, Scotland.

I've been back in Red Barn Studios again, this time with poet and author Margaret Gillies Brown
to record a selection of our songs and poetry from our performances at the A.K. Bell Library Theatre, Perth in recent years for the Perth Festival of the Arts. Our CD "Coming Home" we hope to have on sale at our next performance "Blow the Wind Southerly"on May 28th, 2009.

The master copy of my late husband Al's CD "Full Vision" is now with me and being checked for last minute alterations before going to be pressed. Thank you to everyone who has supported this project by pre ordering. "Full Vision" is available from Chris Clayton at Right Real Records in Rotherham. For the full address see the last blog. It is sounding really good and hopefully will be a good fund raiser for Habitat for Humanity. Al's "Valley of Love" which is on the CD reached no 8 in the US Christian and Gospel Charts. (Caim reached no 6 - sorry Al!)

As always - thank you for your support of our music. Hopefully we'll catch up with you somewhere on tour this year - catching up with friends on our travels and making new ones is what we enjoy most.

Deep Peace

Heather