Monday, August 24, 2015

The Edinburgh Pipe Band Championships 2015

For the second year in a row, our final competition of the season was the Edinburgh Pipe Band Championships. This remains a small competition, which is a shame - I still think the venue is ideal for a large event, but it's not good for a small one.

Due to G's birthday, I had to take the car to this event, which had the nice side-effect that I didn't need to get up until 8:15am, which is positively luxurious. It makes such a difference actually getting enough sleep for a change! I did find the final step of the journey quite annoying, though - the signage to the parking was really very poor.

The morning was fairly relaxed, as we're now past the point where the results or even performances actually mattered. This was probably just as well, as neither of our performances were particularly good - as with the World Championships, there was one chanter that was dropping in and out of the performance.

After our second performance I stuck around for a few hours, in order to support our Drum Major in training, who was competing in the afternoon. Though that perhaps was rather pointless - there were only two people in her competition, and the other not only had eight years or experience to her four months, but he was also declared world champion last week. So she came second.

As soon as she was done, I left. I therefore got home just before 4pm, which was rather nice. And the season is over.

In the Grade 4 competition we came 4th overall (out of 9), being 3rd in Piping and 8th in Drumming. In the Grade 4A competition we also came fourth overall (out of 5), being 4th in Piping and 3rd in Drumming. I think we're happy enough with that.

#40: "The Empty Throne", by Bernard Cornwell

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