Jack is slow again but there’s always an excuse – –

The last two weeks have been quite adventurous and enjoyable –

First of all, our good friends Beth and Brandon organized a week in the Boston area, staying at a lovely house in Manchester by the Sea. We were joined by our mutual friends Barbara and Oliver from Scotland and we had a great time visiting Salem, Boston and all the adjacent beaches. Sadly, Wendy was tied up with work meetings and couldn’t join us.

Following that Barbara and Oliver had a rather eventful train journey from Boston to Roanoke where they stayed the night in a local hotel. In the meantime, I had flown back to Asheville with Beth and Brandon and finally home. Wendy and I drove up to Roanoke the next morning to collect the train riders and bring them to our house and guest room. Three hours later Wendy set off to Montana for a conference, so not much time to catch up on our Boston experience!

The highlight of this week was a small house concert in the local bookstore here in Wytheville where Barbara and I revisited our musical past on Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day another two friends, David and Susan came up from North Carolina and then to the evening concert. In addition our Scottish friends and I drove down to the small town of Appalachia to visit with Sam and Kelley and their kids who they know from our time running our bookstore in Big Stone Gap.

Why is all this significant?

Well – all the people listed above live far apart and are of very different ages and generations. The only thing that really connects us all is myself and Barbara. But we have all shared memorable experiences here in America and in Scotland and are always in close contact via the internet. During the height of the Covid pandemic we ‘Zoomed’ most Sundays.

I asked the group earlier today how we’d describe ourselves and the consensus was – ‘a chosen family’!