Picking up on things past.

I have been remiss over the past two or three weeks on keeping up on this blog. In my defense, I can only offer the usual reasons; family, work, life in general and my inborn laziness. So this is my attempt to catch up with the news as taken from my notes, and try to do better.

Last Thursday night we held another practice at the usual place at Post 7 of the American Leagon in Rochester, NH. The turn out was a little light due to heavy work loads or tripping over a cat and ending up with a broken arm. Having there tonsils being removed. You know, the usual stuff. I did get a photo of Cheryl one of our up and coming pipers in training working with Tom on Amazing Grace.

A few weeks ago as some of you know there was a "wood party" held at Sally's. All in all it went well. The weather was cool and though somewhat cloudy the sun broached through from time to time so no one overheated. A large pile of wood logs was reduced to a somewhat smaller pile of wood chunks that would more or less fit into Sally's wood stove. And beaver dam was dissembled so a rising pond in back of the house would not get any higher. At the end of the day no one was injured, and we all ended up the same count of fingers, toes and other body parts that we started with.



Jack and Lois Kelleher, Tom Martineau and myself with Sally's help put away a lot of wood. We also put away a lot of good food and drink during the day. After a short rest the pipes came out and all the dogs in the neighborhood got very still. It was a good day.


This last Sunday the Band held its by-monthly practice at the Police Athletic League building in Manchester, NH. As some of you know we have The Portsmouth Parade next month. In past years we normally play "Jingle bells". After a while that becomes a bit long in the tooth when you play it over and over during the entire route. So this year the Band is adding "Joy to the Word". So the pipes and the drummers spent some time working on the "New" Christmas Set. Later on a new tune will be added to slowly build up the set.

Also we started working on a new tune "Lagan Love Song" a very pretty tune but one that has some tricky timing. You can hear it being sung by going to U-Tube and looking up Maureen Hegarty she has a very good voice and is well worth the time. For a totally different arraignment of the same song on U-Tube try Sinead O'Connor's version.












Question: How many people does it take to tune a set of pipes?

Answer:

A few more shots taken on Sunday: