shewhomust | Five things make last weekend

- and there's just time to talk about them before the Bears arrive on the after-midnight train, and we start on the next weekend.

Martin Simpson and Arieb Azhar at the Sage: Arieb Azhar is a singer and guitarist from Pakistan - but primarily a singer, I'd say. Martin Simpson is an amazing guitarist, and I'm failing here to summarise the quality which makes him such a fine interpreter of an eclectic repertoire, but whatever it is, it makes him not only a brilliant soloist but also an extraordinary accompanist. So it's a pity that the Sage's page about the collaboration has videos of each of them individually, but gives no flavour of the concert. This little video shows them playing together a month earlier, but those were early days. You would not guess, either, that they would open the concert with Raglan Road...

The chatelaine of Brancepeth Castle celebrated her birthday by holding open castle in aid of a favourite charity. The instruction was "wear old clothes and bring a torch," so we did, and spent a happy morning admiring the grand staircase and wandering around the cellars, many of which are now filled floor to ceiling with books (this being the last resting place of Dobson Books, publisher of, among others, Ronald Searle and some classic SF).

We spent a lazy Saturday evening in front of the television. Watching Doctor Who in real time with S. last weekend reminded us just how bad our digital signal is, so it made sense to wait until the broadcast was over and then watch on the iPlayer, with a bottle of something nice. Then there was the previous night's Have I Got News For You, after which we didn't have the energy for anything but QI. I don't know when I last watched three programmes in a row...

In the hope that it might now at long last be spring, on Sunday afternoon we went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens. Not quite, but nearly: the daffodils were starting to come out, rising from cushions of primroses. The trees of the 'friendship garden' aren't in bloom yet, but nearby the first blossom has appeared:

Back to the Sage for an evening of Finnish tango, played on the accordion.

Bonus musical track, because The Internet is Full of Stuff - and some of it is Orcadian bluegrass. I'd been playing a favourite CD by the Smoking Stone Band, about whom I know nothing but that they made this CD which I love, and it occurred to me to see if I could find out anything more about them. I couldn't - but this site allows me to share what I do know.