Hello dear readers, how are you rocking and rolling this week? I hope it is to a joyful tune and if not then feel good vibes coming your way. You can do it! No matter what you are facing!

I decided to make the “Come Away With Me” Musical Challenge my project to beat cancer. I love to travel, and while I can’t at the moment because of my situation and our decision to instead going on holiday to paying a mortgage, our last one was in 2015.

So I go traveling virtually. I love to watch travel programs, read travel blogs, and now to visit every country on this lovely planet and find an exciting musician. You can find out which country I have planned to visit over the next couple of years here on the “Come Away With Me Musical Challenge” page.

Well, I hope beating cancer won’t need several years. At the end of this week, I will have managed the first stage. I am going to have an operation to have my lymph nodes and two affected areas from my breast removed. Thank goodness, I am not losing my breast. It is rather astonishing to me how much I was relieved to hear that. I never had a particularly good relationship with my body but would hate to lose any part of it.

My mother’s cancer also started on the left breast so maybe I subconsciously connect this measurement with a worse outcome. Who knows. I don’t want to fret over it because the only way for me is to beat it! (Yes, that ancient Michael Jackson song comes into my head a lot recently 😉 )

As long as no complications happen, I’ll be out the same day and can recover at home with the help of the best husband (Jeremy Clarkson voice) in the world and a district nurse. That suits me very well. The breast care nurse assured me that my operation would only be postponed if the whole hospital is shut down because of coronavirus, and it doesn’t look like its come that close yet.

However, that virus is rather resourceful when it comes to infecting people so who knows. But I have to admit I am not bothered. What comes, comes, and I will roll with it.

So, we are travelling to Estonia today. I do not know much about those little Baltic countries. Estonia sits at the Eastern end of the Baltic sea nestled between Latvia and Russia. From what I can see on its homepage “Visit Estonia” it’s cities and towns look rather mediaeval, and the Estonians are into fashion, food and music. Sounds a lovely country to visit as far as I am concerned 🙂 .

I think the Hairy Bikers went to Estonia on their Baltic Tour in their “Northern Exposure” series. I seem to remember a lot of foraging and modern cuisine going on but maybe I am mistaken. Enough though of geography and food. Let’s have a look at Estonia’s musicians.

For today’s post, I had a look at the Music Estonia page, and it’s a database of musicians. There seems a lot of Jazz and electronic music going on, but I chose a folk musician. There is nothing like a good accordion tune. I have to admit I used to hate the accordion and found it quite funny that a friend of mine learned it in school. Not that my recorder learning was much better LOL.

However, I have learned in the last couple of years that you can make rather experimental music with oldfashioned instruments and Tuulikki Bartoski’s tune “Tempest in a Teacup” fully captured me:

How on earth do you come up with a title like that? You know how much I love my cup or mug of tea, and there has been enough tempest in my life to fill a thousand teacups ;-). This title is brilliant in my books 🙂 .

So who is Tuulikki Bartosik? Arusa Qureshi from The List wrote about her music: Bartosik blends the traditional with the experimental, with small phrases and her occasional wordless vocal accompaniment providing unexpected surges of emotion. The character and feeling that she injects into her compositions and arrangements allows for a renewed appreciation of the accordion as a contemporary instrument.

Tuulikki grew up in the South of the country in which two ethnic minorities reside. They are the Seto and Voro people with a distinct language and culture. Voro is captured on Wikitongues online library of endangered languages. Unfortunately, I could not find out more about either group.

They are native peoples of Estonia, and I assume that their culture is closely linked to the Sami people of Northern Scandinavia. But your guess is as good as mine, and unfortunately, I don’t have any time to research that further.

Tuulikki Bartosik has several music projects and is working with musicians from all over the world. She has two albums out but collaborated with several musicians, for example, with Hanna James, fellow accordionist and clog dancer. Doesn’t feel like I could find out much about Tuulikki Bartosik but maybe she’ll find more success in our countries and then we’ll hear more.

Are you intrigued by my musical journey around the world? Then feel free to take part. And here are the suggestions on how to do so:

Come Away With Me 2020 Musical Challenge Country for Monday 16th, 2020

I am taking a rather random route around the world but sometimes it makes sense. Next week we are going to visit Belarus. Find out about interesting musicians on the BelarusGuide page about music.

As for the suggestions to take part:

1. Join in! No matter where, when and with what. You missed the first week? Don’t worry. Just jump in when it suits you.
2. Send us the link! The ping-back option does not always work so please leave a link in the comments of the post on the day you take part.
3. Tag your post either with ” Come Away With Me Musical Challenge”/ #CoAwWiMeMuCh” / “Come Away with Me 2020 Musical Challenge” o/“CoAwWiMe2020MuCh” / . You can also use these as hashtags for Twitter and other Social Networks to give your post more exposure. If you add #blog and #music with your hashtags it will get you more readers.
4. No matter which music or country the prompt favours you create with it whatever you please. This is supposed to be a fun challenge and no chore.
5. I post a prompt for the next week with every “Come Away With Me 2020 post” I write.
6. If you like, use this picture for your readers to find the posts.

And now for something different 😉

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals Charity Boudicca Appeal

I would also like to encourage you to support the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals Charity’s Boudicca Appeal. They are fundraising 800 000£ to create a dedicated breast cancer unit. The hospital today sees almost double as many breast cancer patients than they did five years ago. That is an enormous rise and puts a lot of pressure on the current facilities and staff. 

For me, that meant so far five journeys to Norwich within a month. That is between 35 and 45 minutes travel each way and the worry, not knowing what comes. On Thursday the 5th of March, we went again. We found out that my cancer needs an operation and probably radiotherapy. But I won’t know for sure until two weeks after the operation. While I am holding up well, it still puts a lot of pressure on my family and me. 

They say on their page they want to build:” An enhanced environment. Purport-built, spacious waiting, diagnostic and treatment rooms. Counselling rooms for women with a breast cancer diagnosis.
Better experience for patients with fewer days of anxiety while patients wait for results.”

That would help a lot. According to the NHS, 1 in 8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer in their life time. So it is essential to create better facilities for breast cancer care. The staff I have met so far are doing an excellent job. They are so caring, being extremely effective and supportive. They do deserve a better work environment.

So please, if you can spare a little money hop over to their Just Giving Page and give as little or much as you can. Or share the page on your social media. Your support means a lot to me! Thank you very much.

And just to make sure you recognise the symptoms of breast cancer here a video that tells you all about it.

So, despite everything have a wonderful week, my dear friends, and don’t forget: You rock!

There’s life in her yet

hum for health and sanity

regard dancing clouds

Happy Music Monday to you all!