The Edinburgh [playing together]

"Hi, yeah, um, my story is about, well the place is the Edinburgh pub, which is on Sandown Lane, which is just off Picton High Street. And, um, the story is about, well it was about two years ago. And my wife and I found ourselves, um, temporarily homeless, like for a couple of weeks we were living in a hotel. And then our friend, Mike, said come and stay at his place, which was a great relief to us, although it was still difficult because obviously it wasn't our house and we had basically one room to store all our gear. It was particularly difficult for my wife, my wife found it more difficult than me, but then I remember this one week where had gone away for, she wasn't there for a week, I think maybe she’d gone on a retreat, I'm not sure. But I remember, um, Mike's brother Damien came to stay, who I've met before, but I didn't know that well. But he’s a nice guy. And Mike is a musician. He plays Irish music, he plays the flute, and usually on the Monday evening he’d go to the Edinburgh where they have a session where lots of musicians come to play together. So while his brother was there, he said “let's all go to the session”. So we went along and I don't know if you’ve ever been to any of these sessions, but they're really set up for the musicians. Um, so there's not actually many people who just go along to listen, but there’s one or two. But-but it was nice because I didn't know the musicians very well, I’d met one or two before through Mike, but basically they all sit around the room and play together and, Damien and I, 'cause we're not musicians, we kinda just sat at stools at the bar and had a drink and chatted and it was really interesting hearing about his life story. And every now and again we’d just be quiet and listen to the music, 'cause remember at one point. there's a woman there who played at the harp, the Celtic harp, and apparently she's, um, she was a member of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, apparently. So anyway, yeah, we were listening and so we had a nice evening listening and chatting and, then I had a little pleasant walk home. I remember it was, yeah. It was a nice evening in a dark time. And it brought me - it helped me to bring me back into the world. And reminded me how, yeah, music and arts can kinda bring people together. So yeah, that's my story. Thank you." (Transcript)