Kate Rusby at The Barbican

My second visit to London today was to see Kate Rusby and her band in concert at The Barbican Theatre. Kate, "The Barnsley Nightingale", was performing her Christmas concert which we've been to on several occasions over the years. It makes a good start to the festive season.

Many of the songs are carols, using traditional words, but to different tunes. For example, we sang "While Shepherds Watched..." three times to three different tunes. One version of the carol was sung to the tune of "On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at"

These tunes have their home in the pubs of Yorkshire, driven there Kate says, by the dour Victorians who didn't like all the jollity and fun in their Churches.

It seems that the tradition of having local tunes for well known carols is not just found in Yorkshire but perhaps all over the country - Kate sang a Wassailing song from Cornwall which was very similar to a version she also sang from Yorkshire.

The stars that make up the backdrop are in fact crocheted, yes, can you imagine the size of the needles required to crochet something that big. Very impressive and different.

"While Shepherds Watched" was a favourite carol of my Dad's, although he used to sing the less religious and funnier version "While shepherds washed their socks by night all seated round the fire a great big bag of soot fell down and darkness spread around"

We drove up to the Barbican, a bit of a tortuous journey as the Darford Crossing was once again jammed so traffic was making use of the Blackwell Tunnel, but we had a parking space reserved in a disabled bay so once we got to the Theatre it was all plain sailing.

My visit to London earlier in the day was yet another project board meeting for the prison service work I'm doing. This one seemed quite positive but we'll await the outcomes to see if things happen as we're expecting. The journey there was by train which made it more relaxing and enabled me to get back in time to set off for the Barbican at 5.00pm.