Stories from the Highlands of Scotland. The blog started to tell stories about the geese and chooks at The Chookery, but Her Maj and I have now moved to The Grannary and the sole (invited) animal resident is Lady Voledoomcat.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Saturday night is music night

Word having got around the village that some locals had formed a band, the village hall committee seized upon the opportunity to hold a musical evening with barbecue on Saturday night. After two weeks of unbroken sunshine, it was inevitable that advertising a barbecue would catch the attention of the rain gods and that part of the proceedings was, inevitably, conducted under umbrellas.
There was a pretty good turnout at the hall, about forty folk in all, and with the lights down, it looked like a good crowd. Having been here for two and a half years, I've gotten over most of the social angst that normally strikes at community events.
Since the intention of the evening was to induce audience participation, a bag containing assorted and mysterious instruments of percussion was passed around the tables. I hit upon a wonderful set of wooden "spunes" - exactly like salad servers but with the spoon elements on the outer faces. Since I fancy myself as a wee bit of a spune player (see Spike Milligan for the source of the spelling), I literally hit upon these.
I'd also taken along my treble recorder (yes folks - it's a real musical instrument) and after a while was invited to sit in and tootle along with the uilean pipes, fiddles, mandolines and guitars of the band. Much to my interest, the piper couldn't sort a tune from the recorder.
Needless to say, a far amount of drink was taken, the willow was stripped and the gays gordoned. Herself retired early the worse for sleepiness and I was rather blurred at the edges on the morrow, but a band's a band for a' that.

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