Gypsy nights

The thing about fancy airy fairy dinners that cost arms and legs is, however much fun and deliciousness they are, you come away feeling faintly guilty and feeling that yes this was very very good and enjoyable but food means something quite different to millions of people.
I suppose the only way to balance this feeling out is to contribute something equivalent to somewhere it'll do some good.
Right then. A small task for the near future.

Tonight's entertainment was a quite different kind of thing. Fran's birthday present was a gypsy violin workshop followed by a concert with the London Gypsy Orchestra. I recommend them for a thoroughly joyful, foot stamping, hand clapping evening. Grrrrreat stuff.
The workshop was very good fun too...25 or so people clutching fiddles and being taught a gypsy tune (with all the twiddles and slidey bits) by the lovely, talented and vivacious Gundula Gruen, a marvellous fiddle player with a delightful accent ( Eastern European I would guess since that's where the music comes from). I can't say I remember the whole tune but that's no problem since I bought the book with hundreds of tunes and a CD :)
And the concert was brilliant. Both my girls came with me (there are great advantages to having a daughter in the press) and we bopped and clapped till our arms ached. (well mine did). Ate noodles at a fast noodle bar across the road and had a last pint at the pub next door and agreed that Gundula was the sort of woman who, as well as leading the orchestra (on violin) with immense grace and style and having a delightful accent and speaking several languages, probably has dozens of children, at least two full time jobs and could most probably leap over multi storey buildings in a single bound.*
In short, we were quite impressed with her. We were particularly impressed with the way, when the fiddling was too fast and furious for her to conduct with the bow, she did it by leaping into the air!
No photos alas, as cameras were strictly verboten and handbags searched before we were allowed in the concert venue.
Lovely birthday evening thank you Fran :)

*Ah! now I've read my own link, I see that we were quite right about her.**
**Well not about the dozens of children or the leaping of buildings. That was just poetic license.