They've just emailed to say that first of these is an open rehearsal in the Purcell Room this afternoon (Friday) from 4-5. I am just thinking about whether that's doable after school, subject to my parcel arriving before then (my returned Edirol R-09 -- I rather stupidly dropped it at the Chippenham Folk Festival, causing minor but irritating damage. They're not charging me for the fix; which is very nice of them but of course the R-09 is amazingly non-rugged for a field data recorder which is why it broke in the first place).
Tomorrow Spiers & Boden are playing in the bar at 11:30, and then, very excitingly for me, Bellowhead are running a session on the Hayward stage at 1:30. 'Come along bring an instrument, all instruments very welcome, kazoos count'. The music for the tunes is on the Bellowhead website. Some I know well already (Winster Gallop, Speed the Plough), some are impossible in the timescale (The Shropshire Lass, Constant Billy in A) and then there's a whole pile in the middle that I should be able to make a reasonable fist of if I continue practicing furiously. Then there are further outings over the weekend for the full band and also for the jazz trio embedded within it, and a duo of Benji Kirkpatrick and Paul Sartin (2/3 of Faustus). I don't think I'll be able to get to any of those, though. Perhaps if I just hung around RFH all weekend, which might be tempting if we didn't have festivals both of the following two weekends.