Unless you have been traveling interstellar you’ll have noticed that everything has come puttering to a halt, I know I’ve been working hard on excuses to not practice but I can assure you Covid19 is nothing to do with me.
As a band we have suspended all activities, however we keep in touch through social media and try to relieve the boredom, I have started watching a Prime series about a guy floating about on his canal longboat and I can say it is endlessly fascinating and new depths of boredom. New tunes have been tried out and I’m even considering working out ‘Thine be the Glory’ for Easter Sunday which will sound epic if I can make it fit. As a family we went out and gave the NHS and other key workers a hearty round of applause and I’d been messaged that Oban High School band were trying to get pipers to play ‘Colin’s Cattle’ and ‘Castle Dangerous’ nationally at 8:05 which I duly did although I have to apologise to Angus McColl as my second tune was ‘Lochanside’ which surprised me as much as anyone. Word is we’re doing it again this Thursday and it’s two old favourites; I see Mull ( on our website ) and Donald MacLeans Farewell to Oban (not on our website)
With the season kiboshed I’ve asked my bandmates to send me pictures or videos of what they did when they should have been in the circle, James the Hat and I are joint most boring as he did the crossword and weeded his path and I firstly did some Hee followed closely by some Haw. Grant the Elder even made himself a bass drum so he could join in with his girls and it sounded good. The end of season film show is finished already which is a weight off my mind and the awards this year could be glittering.
Hazel Tenor and I have taken up cycling, I dug my bike out of the hut and scraped the rust off and she bought a proper sit up n beg pink ladies bike with a basket. I went fishing and came home married to Mary Poppins. We can now be found on the cycle path to Lochwinnoch puffin and pechin along.
Next up is Gourock and I’ll be looking forward to receiving loads of pictures and videos of what you get up to not at Gourock.
I’ll be listening out for some ropey playing on Thursday night
Cannae wait..
Kilbarchan Pipe Band Blog 
Back in the time when Alec Buchanan was the PM of the band (and maybe we should write a brief story about him…) “I See Mull” was a tune we played often. For reasons best known to history it was usually called “The Honking Seal”…