Happy New Year 2010!

Stranded by snow and ice and finding myself with a few days free over the New Year holidays, I've been checking Caim's myspace site and this one to see if updates are needed. Hadn't realised it's been so long since the last newsletter blog.

The run up to Christmas was manic with Music in Hospital tours and concerts almost every day for Ciaran and myself and culminating in our annual Firefrost Christmas day gig at the Winnock Hotel, Drymen, Loch Lomond. This year we had our Christmas dinner there - and very nice it was too!

Jacynth and I continued our fund raising for our next Thailand visit with a joint concert at Blairgowrie Library in November with Kate and Ciaran followed by a session at the Meikleour Inn near my home. The following day Jacynth, Kate and myself provided the music for a meditation day in Dunblane. We love this use of our music and it was a bonus when Alex Holmes from WCCM organised a surprise (to us!) donation for Caim's Thailand venture.

Also during Jacynth's stay in Scotland we visited Murthly primary and arranged for a day's workshops and concert at the end of January - again as part of our fundraising but also to create awareness for the school children here of the lifestyle of the Karen children in Thailand. Caim will be hosting other fund raising events during that week and I will travel to Belfast in February for a week of fund raising there also.

On the appropriate weekend in January (nearest to January 25th of course) Caim are singing for a workshop and Burns concert at one of our favourite venues - The Well at Willen, Milton Keynes. Apart from Holy Island - the community at the Well is where it all started for Caim's music.

For our overseas travel this year our friend and agent in Canada, Ian Davies, is trying to arrange our postponed Florida tour for March and we hope to travel to Thailand in November. For all our friends in Wisconsin, Colleen in Seymour has offered once again to organise a tour there too - but that will be Spring 2011.

Finally, I seem to be always apologising about Al's CD. I've been the hold up this time as more finance was needed than we first thought. However, I am travelling to Yorkshire this month to get the project finally underway at Right Real Records. Thank you to all of you for your patience - I've heard the end result and it is worth waiting for!

Happy New Year and new decade everybody!

Heather, Jacynth, Ciaran and Kate.