Unity Day Leeds 2013

Generally, Debs, Unity is safest on a piece of grass. No stage means no amplifiers, no speakers, no on stage monitors,  no mixing desk, no sound engineers. Whether you are a quintet or a full blown Foxwood and Sparrows combo of 20, there's always enough room on the grass.

So first we were the Hyde Park Primary Combo. At Kirkstall this consisted of Ben from Blenheim and Mikey from Sacred Heart plus a Foxwood/Sparrows combo. Today was Shafa from Blenheim plus a Foxwood/Sparrows combo [ie me, Vicky, Tim, Amy]. We rocked through some tunes from the Foxwood Songbooks. The audience was small, but enthusiastic [not pictured here].

Later we were me, Bex, Daisy, Amy, Sarah, Vicky, Tim, Natalie, Varshika, Katie, Georgia from Foxwood and Millie and Chloe from Sparrows. Sarah recently joined the ranks of players who have to do that one-handed thing: baby on one arm and either play bass or tune, one - handed, or two sticks one hand on chords, on the other. At this stage, a quick breast-feed and back into the pram, Daniel is not putting up too much of a fight. So, unwisely perhaps, Sarah left the pram a couple of metres  to her left so he wasn't too disturbed by Sweet Soca and the like.

Lola peeped into the pram, and Sarah said, you can rock him if you like. I counted to four, and we were in. At this point my mother arrived, and decided to take over. I shouted , from my place on the triple bass, "Sarah, my mother is going off with Daniel." "Yes, fine", she called back, "No", I called back, "My mother is going off with your baby!"

Two or three tunes later, our first set ends, and I put out a general appeal for the whereabouts of the Mother and Sarah's baby. Eventually Bex and Katie locate them in the Stone Circle, and Sarah and Natalie can compare baby-notes [see doting auntie and mother].

In our interval Jo and Ben try out, and love, djembes.