MOT

Well, we've been up to Scotland, and mostly avoided midges, and visited the Monkey's maker. He showed me how to add hemp, remove hemp, start from scratch when hemp falls off or pushes too far up the joint. He also showed me several alarming things to do with reeds which involved pliers and made me feel pretty much the same way I feel about steeking: very nervous and slightly sick.

I played a little while I was there so that Ian could judge that everything was working right. The fan noted that I looked nervous. I certainly was. It's not often I play for another piper, someone who can see and hear every fluffed, missed or mangled grace. I feel more worthy than I did of my Monkey, and Ian is such a nice man I am sure nothing like this ever crosses his mind, but I feel that if I was an instrument maker I might feel a little peeved about having my beautiful instrument in the hands of one who doesn't quite deserve it.

The Monkey's joints are all now really air tight, and I felt a difference when I played yesterday. I also loosened off the bellows strap as Ian says if I wear it lower down I'll stop pushing the bellows askew, but that felt very odd indeed, as if the bellows were about to slip off me entirely. I also thought too much about bellows and bag as Ian noted, as the fan has done, that I tend to snatch the bellows a bit and not use their full extent. So all in all it was a bit like getting the car back from an MOT or service. On the plus side everything is clean and shiny and tight and responsive, but then the seat will have been pushed back, the mirrors adjusted and the radio tuned to something awful. It's great to know that everything is in full working order, but it takes a while to get everything feeling familiar again.

Change of fortunes

I am still here....

The pipes one day, plot the next plans went belly-up almost at once. Initially it was in the favour of the pipes, which I played every day for a bit. It was too hot for the plot. Then it got too hot for pipes. And too humid: slightly damp fingers and chanter make it difficult to break the seal when you make the very tiny movements needed for grace notes.

When the Battle is O'er was one I tried forever ago. My teacher, as bored as I was with the Green Book tunes, suggested The Green Hills of Tyrol. I didn't know it. I didn't know A Scottish Soldier. I'd never heard of Andy Stewart. At some stage I discovered that the Hills were often played with the Battle, and I heard them together, on pipes, in Berwick on Tweed. Those were chanter days, long gone.

Recently I've come across this pair played with Magersfontein, and actually they are all one after the other in  my Seaforth Highlanders book. I'm skipping the Hills, but the Battle makes a nice intro for Magersfontein so I am thinking of reinstating it in my repertoire. I've discovered, as I play, that the low G graces on the low A's are really important. They give the tune...oh, depth, or gravitas, or something - just that momentary flipping through the lowest note, the note of gathering (according to The Big Music).

Off to Scotland soon, with my Monkey, and hope to play there, even if only to myself.

Pipes in Clover

When I was (much) younger I went through a phase of reading pony books. The only title I remember is Ponies in Clover. I couldn't tell you anything about the book. My one abiding memory of pony books is the point at which (did it really happen in every pony book?) the plucky girl would notice that one of the horses had colic. It was late at night, grown-ups were absent, but the plucky girl knew what to do. She had to walk that horse. She had to walk and walk with that horse until they were both asleep on their feet, because a horse with colic that lies down dies.

I thought about colicky horses this evening. I had a skimpy lunch (too hot to be bothered), came home, got dinner in the oven, poured an aperitif and began to play. Naturally the aperitif went straight to my head so my fingers and brain disconnected themselves and great waves of sleepiness kept washing over me. I managed a handful of tunes, but then the Cudgel got stuck on a loop of B parts, Athol kept skipping direct from the first to the fourth part, and the Braemar Gathering stalled after two parts. I kept walking about to keep myself going, but decided to give up while I was still playing recognisable strings of notes.

And one in the wash

One of my favourite pastimes is planning. Actually, planning makes it sounds too organised. Speculating? OK - maybe it's just daydreaming. I ponder possibilities of yarn and patterns. I consider fabric. I make lists of books to read. I mark up recipes in my favourite cookery books. I have big plans for the allotment in the autumn which involve moving the strawberry beds, replacing the raspberries with a better variety and finding room for two more redcurrants.

Musically my plans are modest. I intend to avoid distraction by alternating days I play with days going down the plot. In some ways this is pointless. The two activities don't really overlap. Piping needs to be done before dinner. In the current weather work at the plot needs to be done after dinner, when it's cool. But there are so many other things to squeeze into an evening.... So, one day piping, the next day plotting, as it were. (From my childhood - perhaps from books set in even more ancient times - I have the concept of three of everything: one on, one off, and one in the wash...)

My plans go agley so often, but I enjoy them while they last. Everything in my plans is so neat and tidy and organised.

I played yesterday, and enjoyed it very much. Then I got out the silver cloth and gave the Monkey a good clean. Today the plot. Tomorrow I'll be late home after work so maybe have time for neither... So much for plans.

The longest day

Actually, it has been the longest week. An annual event at work has meant I've been working 11 hour days, mostly outside, with the temperatures on the high side for this part of the world. I enjoy it, but I've not had the energy to do anything else.

This weekend we've had a family event, and I've managed some weeding and harvesting at the plot, and that's about it. I've played not one note, but I've thought abut music, about playing. Tunes have gone round my head and I have missed my monkey.

The naming of names

Fiddling (or piping) around this evening, trying out possible sets. I wondered about Magersfontein and Dargai. I think they go nicely but it might just be that my fingers love Dargai and play it - or Loch Bee - with pretty much everything.

I'm better at thinking up the names of sets than actually putting tunes together. I want several Highland Brigade tunes so I can have a set called "Postcards from the Highland Brigade". It's a shame that Braemar and Troy wouldn't suit as I rather fancy them together as "Dearly Beloved".

A kind relative has just rung to point out a programme on BBC2 on pipers in the trenches during World War one, the Great War.

Bridge over troubled water

Life isn't always straightforward, things don't always go as you hope. But there are always pipes.

Got the first part of Braemar by heart. The second and third are there, but I needed a prompt to find them. Getting there.