Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Cowal Gathering

The band didn't qualify for the competition proper. Worse, it was my fault.

As it has been the each of the past two years, the rest of the day was pretty much a bust. That 5am wake-up call is a real monster (made worse by not actually sleeping before it). Then lots of sitting around waiting, first to go on, then to find we haven't qualified, then for the chip shops in town to open so we can get something to eat that is actually edible (and not priced at 400% what might be considered reasonable), then the long wait for the parade down the street (the parade itself is actually quite good), and then a wait for the bus to get on the ferry, so we can actually go home.

At least the weather, while not actually being pleasant, wasn't actively hostile.

And so ends another competition season for the band. Oddly, the Pipe Major was actually fairly upbeat about it all. I suppose he takes heart from the fact that the band is once again moving in the right direction, the numbers are going up (with all the benefits that go with that), some of the dead weight that's been holding us back has been shed, and if things continue along the same trajectory, then we should actually have a good year next year. I'm not an optimist by nature, so will wait and see.

On the plus side, I did get ten solid hours of sleep last night, which is more than for a very long time. And I'm off to Lisbon tomorrow, which should be... well, a change at least.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So sorry - and how is this your fault? Were you singled out or do you just feel this way?

Steph/ven said...

No, it was. At the key moment, I hit the bag just wrong, and messed up the start.