PipeDreams

Another early start to catch a 6:30 am check in at Glasgow and it was on our way to Stanstead airport to connect to a flight to Marseille.

Its always and experience flying easy jet and Ryan air, but everything went very smoothly! (apart from some bag re packing by our travelling companions in Stanstead as they were a bit heavier than what they had bought !)

We arrived in Marseille where Hamish had organised a rental car, and drove down to Nice, stopping in Toulon for lunch on the way (Macdonalds it was ! )
It was a great drive, but the Tolls were crazy it seemed every 15 minutes we had to go through a toll gate
Hamish was pretty knacked by this stage but we managed to keep him awake, somehow find our destination.

When had to goto a certain door and press the bell market “PAPA” a french lady answered and couldn’t speak any english, she came down and lead us away through all these packed old town streets, we were sure we were going to end up just above some extremly busy part of town, but before we knew it we were around a few more corners and up 4 flights of stairs and we were at our apartment ! Its very nice, and hot !

Then the mission to get our bags began ! The car was parked up in an underground car park but it was a fair hike to get them all the way up to the ground then along to the apartment door and up the stairs, certainly worked up a sweat, and not being able to be bothered with much more we headed to the closest little bar and had some beers and Tapas, 8 euro pints is still the most expensive we have been able to find !!

Worlds 2011

Raining to start, but largely ended up being just a cloudy day.
Play time was about 9:08, prep was designed and practiced to be short, very short

From where I was it sounded bloody good, as good as any other band I have played with before at the worlds, but one piping result meant it wasnt meant to be
6 and 11 in piping 5 in ensemble and 4 in drumming.

It totally sucks to get such a good result from 3/4 of the judges, we had it worked out if the drummers had pulled a 2 or that piping judge had softened to a 9 we would have been through !

A few beers, off to the Oran Mor and a few more beers and it was time for bed for the 5:30am rise to catch a plane the next day and start the Holiday !

In keeping with our trend it was an early rise, bit of breakfast then down to the green for a look around.
Another dreary scottish day, and exactly what we were expecting for tomorrow.

After the inspection it was off to a secret practice venue to hammer out the tunes one last time before the big day

All in all a bloody good run and everyone was feeling really good about how we would play tomorrow, leagues ahead of where we were this time last year

Thursday was set to be a big day, Pipes of peace comunity contest in the middle of the day, then a quick street march, and if we won the contest playing at the concert that night with SFU and SLOT.

The reality turned out to be a bit more bleek, the pouring rain didnt want to stop, we couldn’t afford to play out side anymore and stuff the instrument, plus we went through a period of about 90 minutes where it seemed no one knew what was going on… so the plug was pulled, back on the bus and back to queen margaret by 2:30 made for alot less stressful day, what we needed really.

What else to do but to head into the piping centre, George Sq and a few shops to see what the craic was.
Was great to catch up with Mark at the Piping Centre too !

From Drop Box

Tuesday we had a pretty solid day practicing once more changed the pitch around a bit expecting a cold morning on Saturday.

Wednesday was the big move into Glasgow we are still in the middle of it but its been a huge challenging day. Pouring rain meant no real practice this morning a bit of chanters in the rain.

We caught the bus to glasgow and to Queen Margaret Residence where were checked in in a hurry, then headed to the square for a bit of a tune, it was still torrential rain at this point so we were thankful it had been moved into the big marquee on the side of the normal play area.
We had a solid tune in there, one chanter going wildly off with a little bit of dressing on it, but otherwise very solid, the media exposure is starting to ramp up now

STV Interview with Richard

Straight after that it was up to the todd bar where drumming for drinks was being held.
Dan played a great set with the start of the medley, intteruppted by RBH playing Flower of Scotland, and then countered with us all doing the HAKA to a packed Drumming for drinks room. Was bloody great fun and Dan came away best Bass drummer on the day with a Pearl Bass drum and Hard Case for his efforts !

Monday off to Oban..
This year we were more organised in that we had a car all booked and managed to collect it early on

Jim Katie and I set off for the lochs and Oban, Was a great road trip up and Oban was nice if not a bit windy, about half way on the drive back though it started to be a long day !

Practice again that night

A wee bit wet

Woke to rain, rain and rain, pretty much the whole day, so strategic chanter and pad practice, play time not till 5

Prep was pretty simple check everything at Alexander Court, bus down, tune everyone individually on the bus then out in the to rain once around the drones and on !!

Shortest prep in history, sounded bloody good, some great playing, one drone never turned over for the whole performance though which really ruined it for us.

Another very solid result for the drummers second to Inverary

Back for the obligatory band BBQ and a few bevies to celebrate a solid weekends efforts also combined with a bit of celebration for Liams 21st that was coming up on Tuesday

Happy Birthday LIAM !

Saturday arrived very rapidly this trip, and with it the first contest on scottish soil once more, North Berwick highland games.
There had been word that the games could be cancelled due to the torrential rain they had had in the east over the past couple of days but it seemed to have cleared up on the Friday so things were all set to go on the Saturday. We bussed over in what was not too bad a day weather wise, once we arrived though things changed and it rained pretty much constantly.

We got the pipes out and had a great sound out of the box, unfortunately we were a bit to quick to the gun so by the time we had to play drones were swimming, a number popping off.
We played a very solid medley and then almost straight onto the MSR, drones spoiled what would have been some good runs, with only one piper have all 3 drones going by the time the MSR hit !

Results from the day where solid, 2 3rd places, 2nd in the drumming, bit of an aberration from one piping judge putting us dead set last when the other had a us second but other than that pretty consistent.

Long drive back stopping in Haddington for a black pudding supper and then home to try and dry stuff out so we could do it all again tomorrow !

We arrived in Scotland to our Home in Alexander Court, Stirling Uni, once more, A lovely campus with lots of trees around and a very relaxed atmosphere.

First priority was of course to get the internet on ! We succeeded in this quite quickly and everyone has been able to have the internet in their rooms this year, a massive improvement.

We had a quick sound check on instruments did the shopping and settled in, managed to have a terrible night with no sleep as jet lag head kicked in, I thought this was particularliy unfair this time around as I felt the best I ever had when we landed.

Thursday practice for me was pretty long and tough because of the lack of sleep, but managed a solid night on the Thursday night and felt alot better on Friday.

Both days involved a tonne of practice, sound checking and the pouring rain giving as time to work on our raining prep, it turns out this was going to be an extremely good skill to have under our belt !

Sitting in Christchurch airport with the daunting 37 hours or what ever it is ahead of us one has to wonder why we keep doing this !

Emirates are still the best airline to get you from chch to glasgow really, and our itinerary meant that we had a slightly longer wait in Sydney but were able to fly straight to Dubai on the A380. Turbulence somewhere over India got the better of some, with some harden EQ veterans waking from a slumber thinking they needed to run to the nearest door !

A short stop over in Dubai and then another uneventful flight through to Glasgow and our accomodation at Stirling Uni.