Saturday, 18 March 2017

A Drizzle of Music

The weather at this time of year is often warm and sunny, but today we experienced Scottish weather, which was perfect for one of the events I'm about to describe. By Scottish weather I mean temperatures of around 12 C and a heavy drizzle dripping from a leaden sky ... or should I say Skye? I once attended a pipe band competition at Portree, the main town on Skye. It took place one evening and the weather was not too different to what I experienced here today, and moreover perfect for the event in question, which consisted of a series of bands playing highland laments!

The first musical event attached to the Armidale Autumn Festival was the traditional breakfast with the band. By the way, Armidale is named after the town on the Isle of Skye that's home to the clan McDonald and it was named in the early 1830s by Commissioner McDonald of the NSW government. I wonder if there's a link! The breakfast is a fund-raiser for the band and while we eat breakfasts prepared by various service club's - including mine, which is Armidale Rotary North - the band keeps us happy with a range of familiar tunes. Band membership runs right across the age spectrum and even includes under 10s. Breakfasts are normally held outside in a park, but today's weather conditions forced us under cover, as these pictures show. Since the band HQ is close to one of major car-parks, the event was split between the two.

So here we are cosy in the Band Room, and some of my readers may recognise Dot. However, other diners preferred to eat outside in order to hear the band better. Outside in this case was the ground floor of a two-storey car park.




And here's the band all dressed in their smart uniforms.


And here, also under cover, were the chefs preparing the rather good breakfasts, with the second of these sowing the team from Armidale Rotary North.



An hour or so later, with the drizzle getting heavier, I was in the Mall to welcome the massed pipe bands of Armidale, Tamworth and Moree. The weather must have been a shock for pipers and drummers from Moree where temperatures for the last 3 months have averaged over 30 C daily. Still, they played brilliantly a medley of traditional Scottish songs ... along with Waltzing Matilda.








I found their performance very atmospheric and had, in my mind, images of much of Scotland which I've visited over the centuries from the southern borders, and central lowlands including Edinburgh and Glasgow, to Aberdeen and Inverness in the north-east, Caithness, the western mainland, and both the Inner and Outer Hebrides. I find the countryside so atmospheric I'm resolving to revisit many of my old haunts and especially take Dot to such islands as Mull, Iona, Staffa and Skye.

AS

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