EMBLETON Women's Institute were treated to an evening of musical fun, as a woman who has collected many instruments from around the world visited the group.

Margaret Rees spent an entertaining evening with the ladies of the Embleton WI, sharing her lute music and the many instruments she has collected on her travels around the world.

Margaret's instruments include a stunning oud, the Arabic ancestor of our western lute, inlaid with ebony, ivory and mother-of-pearl, which she bought in Jerusalem; plus panpipes from Bolivia and Romania.

There is a Polynesian nose flute - and a South Sea Island zither made entirely from bamboo, with the strings cunningly sliced from the wood itself.

Her collection includes a harp with a gourd sound-box, and a gourd head at the top, from the Black Sea, which she came across in a remote Turkish village.

Margaret said: "The Embleton group particularly liked the rain-maker, made out of a Chilean cactus, and the Aboriginal thunder-roarer which I bought in Cairns, Australia."