In disgrace

Oh the shame! We went to the usual session today. We've missed the last two, but it's the same session we've been going to for over a year. It was mostly the same people: a good third of the session was the band, who had played elsewhere earlier in the day. I may have been tempted to play something new - the Bee or Magersfontein perhaps - but I played safe and stuck to tunes I can play in my sleep: My Home Town, Bonnie Galloway and Flett.

Reader, I fluffed all three. Home Town wasn't too dire and I held it together despite playing some utterly random notes in the middle. I had totally lost the bottom G - couldn't feel it with my finger at all - and having sat down and started in a hurry the bag was sitting wrongly under my arm. After a while I tried the second tune and again just fluffed whole bars, but managed to keep it going. Later I switched to D. Much fiddling with drones, but I totally lost it and had to abandon. It's a while since that has happened.

I wish I knew what makes me fluff so badly. I was nervous the moment I started: hands shaking and I got hotter and hotter, and yet, as I said, it was a session I know well with people I know well.

It may have been that I didn't initially get a seat and when I did there was a bit of a clamour for a tune, making me the focus of attention and also making me play before I was in the right frame of mind, perhaps. Once I fluff I get tense and worry about fluffing again.

It might have been that I really don't play enough with drones and am out of practice. I'm hardly out of practice with piping: I've played most days for two months. It may have been the appearance of another, much more competent, piper. Or perhaps the Monkey was distracted by France pipping Scotland to the post on the screen in the corner.

I don't know why it happens, but it's certainly shaming when it does.