Slow, slow

It's a slow old time of year, Twixtmas, but we're enjoying being lazy, the fan and I, pottering about, doing a bit of this and a bit of that and not very much of anything at all.

We did manage to get to a session. I played four times. I got half way through the first tune (Dargai) when I realised that I had forgotten about stage fright, and didn't actually have any. That didn't stop me from making a pig's ear of Loch Bee, just like last time. I lost the plot during the King, but managed Margersfontein and Flett together, and then Bonnie Galloway, because I couldn't remember how to start the Rowan Tree.

The session leader made a mock presentation to me as "most improved player." I should feel pleased about this, but I've never been one to take compliments well, and feel both that I ought to be most improved, since I started from the lowest point, and also that I need to improve a great deal more. Still, knowing there is more of a journey to go doesn't cancel out the miles travelled already...

At the end of the evening a Northumbrian piper asked if I'd like a closer look at his pipes...and I ended up strapping then on and giving them a go. They are teeny, tiny, with bellows that, like Duckface, weigh next to nothing, the chanter is full of strange lumps and angles and bristles with keys. Would I be tempted, asks the fan? But I haven't even learned to play the pipes I have yet...

I've got some new CDs - two Tannahill Weavers, which I wanted for Iain MacInnes' contribution, and Piob is Fidheall, of which more later, probably.