I haven’t been to a Gathering for 3 or 4 years, so I was happy to see many old faces when I arrived at Benoni High School on Saturday. It was the last competition of the season and was very well attended from what I remember from half a decade ago. My brother played in the first event of the day with the King Edward VII School Pipe Band, so I arrived at 8am to drop him off still a bit worse for ware from the night before.
Before long I was meeting old friends and I found myself in the beer tent at about midday, slowly getting happier and happier. I spent most of the day with my old Transvaal Scottish B Pipe Major, Alan Leesam, and an old friend of Chris Mulinder and my dad’s, Peter Holdgrieves. It was great to catch up withall of them and throughout the day we worked througha case of beer with the humm of the bands in the background.
The day was not really successful for the SA Irish. They needed to beat 1Medical to win Champion of Champions, but only managed 4th on the day to come second for the season. They’ll take a good week or two off now before we all start to prepare for the Tattoo in September. Craig and the rest of the band were their usual happy selves despite the result.
I made a point on Saturday of not supporting anyone in particular… I have this tendencyto be really competitive in everything and I find that it detracts from my enjoyment of the activity in the end. So I made up my mind to just enjoy the sights and sounds. This was brought home a while after the massed bands and prize-giving when I was having a chat withan old school-mate of mine… a piper from one of the Gr. 2 bands came up and bitched and moaned about what seemed (to me) to be petty issues with the band’s score sheets. I looked around at everyone relaxing and having a drink after a long day, and almost told him to let it go and have a pint with us. Maybe I’ve been out of the game so long that it doesn’t bother me, and maybe those issues were legitimate, but I really wonder why people get so riled up over something that is supposed to be fun. I’m in no place to criticise though, so I’ll just be happy that I had an awesome day. I can’t wait to compete with the bands though…
All in all I had a great day. I caught up with some old friends, heard some amazing sets and was pleasantly surprised that the highland dancers are a whole lot hotter than I remember! There are a few solo contests before the end of the year that I’m looking forward to watching (and maybe competing in), but for now I’ll just get on with the practice at a leisurely pace.
