Bathgate Highland Games

The first competition of the season is always the Dunbar Highland Games, and always attracts a very large number of bands - everyone uses it as a guide to how the season as a whole is going to go. And, of course, the Majors attract a lot of bands. However, we're now into the bulk of the season, during which the competitions become smaller.

After coming tenth at both Dunbar and Dumbarton, my goal for Bathgate was to come ninth or better. It turned out, though, that only nine bands in our grade showed, so that proved a very easy target to meet.

Yesterday was, of course, a gloriously sunny day, which meant I had to put sunscreen on in the morning. Oh, how I hate that stuff! Still, it had to be done, and it meant that today I have not a single bit of sunburn (nor even a tan!), except right on the front of my nose, which seemed somehow to get missed. Quite annoyed about that.

We played well. Rather better than we have previously, in fact, and for the first time in the season there wasn't a mismatch between how the pipers played and how the drummers played. (At Dunbar, the pipers were sixth but the drummers well down the field; at Dumbarton the drummers were sixth and the pipers eleventh.)

We came seventh. I was actually rather disappointed with that. And, to be honest, I do feel it wasn't really a fair reflection on our performance. At Dunbar, if I'm being honest, I think we got rather lucky with the result; Dumbarton I thought was probably about right. But yesterday thought we did better than we actually placed.

Oh well. It was still a good day, despite it all.

After the competition, we went to Morrisons in Falkirk to welcome back the football team. (They lost, but the town decided to celebrate anyway.) We were on TV. We then travelled to the stadium and played for them again, at the end of their parade through the town.

And after that, we retired to the house of one of the families in the band, there to have several drinks, and long and fruitless conversations about nonsense. Finally, a few of us headed up to the town, but that proved to be a waste of time and money. It turns out Falkirk has yet a third club (I think it hasn't been open long, hence why that number keeps going up), so we went there. Apparently, it is considered to be the place to be seen in Falkirk, which I suspect is a bit like being the best team in the third division, or the best band in grade 4B - it's better to be that than nothing, but it's still pretty poor. Anyway, it really was better than the other two but...

I got to bed just before 3. Then, some annoying ball of continuously fusing hydrogen decided to light up the sky, and cause me to wake at 8. Grr, stupid Sun! So now I'm updating my blog, watching "Dollhouse", and going to go to Asda for week nine of The Grand Experiment.

Next week, Markinch.

#24: "Pathfinder: Guide to Absalom", by Owen K. C. Stephens
#25: "Pathfinder: Legacy of Fire Players' Guide", from Paizo Publishing (various authors)

(I feel it's a bit of a cheat adding that last one to the list, as it clocks in at a mighty 36 pages. However, it is described as a book, and it has a set of covers, so technically it counts. The next couple have an average of 650 pages each, so I'm going to take some comfort in that.)