For Christmas my friend Liz gave me tickets to hear The Band of the Irish Guards and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders 5th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland perform in Portland Maine. That's right, bagpipe music. Two glorious hours of it. Normally I get the rare taste of bagpipes at parades and funerals, but never, EVER enough.
This was a most excellent gift. Liz paid attention when I mentioned I love the sound of bagpipes. And then she tracked down bag pipe music... in MAINE. Which, in case you didn't know, isn't exactly a hotbed of Highland music. Not only did I love hearing the music and seeing the performance, but I very much enjoyed a day that was different from my normal routine. I mean, there were things to DO at home. Things to clean, articles to write, laundry to do, wood to haul, web sites to recreate. Instead we played hookie from reality and broke from routine. And it felt good.
After the show we met my niece Emily and her husband for a very fun dinner in a excellent restaurant, The Pepper Club, in old town Portland. I adore Emily and never get to spend as much time with her as I'd like to. The fact that the meal ended with a truely excellent mousse was frosting on the cake.
The drive time was good, too. We played our favorite music, chatted and hashed out plans for our next joint venture. On the way home the enourmous wolf moon rose slow as justice over the inky tree line. The echoes of bagpipe music are thrumming through my veins, and I have the warm glow of someone who had a little vacation. Now THAT is an excellent gift.
5 comments:
Found your post from a Google Alert for "bagpipes." In case you didnt know there are great highland games, overlooking the ocean at http://www.mainehighlandgames.org/highlandgames.html I hope to get to them one day.
Thanks Julie! We are going to try to check those out this year.
Cheers!
We live about 5 miles away from Furman University, where every year they have Highland Games....can you believe that for 11 years, I have "snoozed" passed the date !?!?! Come down here & see them with me so I will remember this year ! A weekend on the lake, with all the bagpipes you can hear & telephone pole hurling on top of it all !
Maybe it's genetic, Cousin, as I, too, love bagpipe music. I have an old tape which I play when nobody is around, as not everyone is a fan of the skirl-and-drone. One of the delights of my life was to visit Edinburgh a few years ago, where I walked about the Castle and on the very site of the annual Edinburgh Tattoo. It's a much smaller area than you'd think when you see it on TV.
Karen, it is fun to think you are reading my blog! Stay cool and stay in touch...
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