After dinner with my long lost relatives, it was off to the train station to meet up with my best friend in the world, Jessie. Long time readers may remember Jessie from my Chinablog, and our crazy holiday to Beijing (and Steve Irwin impersonations in photo enough to amuse even the most dour of souls).

Gods, but it’s good to see old friends again! Jessie and I have spent the day together today “doing” Edinburgh. And when I say “doing”, I mean “scratching the surface”.

Edinburgh. What an incredible city. I’m in love. I love this city. I was tossing up whether to settle down in Edinburgh, London or Dublin. After yesterday though, there is NO competition. Edinburgh has got to be the most BEAUTIFUL city I have EVER seen. I was actually getting teary-eyed at times, when it was just street after street of incredible, awe-inspiring architecture and vistas.

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What a couple of days! Yesterday we found ourselves being piled into a large taxi (not quite large enough for all our gear)

to take us to the BBC radio studios in Glasgow, to lay down four tracks for a BBC Radio show called Celtic Connections:

It’s just occured to me that I’ve not gone and named all of us in group shots, so just in case you weren’t sure, L-R, there’s Shannon, Mark, Me (the stunned mullet) and Simmo.

I gotta say, it’s been years since I’ve done any kind of recording, and I’d forgotten how draining it can be in comparison to playing live – when you’re playing live, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what kind of stuff up you make. But recording is a whole different kettle of fish – you feel the need to get the take right, perfect even. Here we are, sitting around, listening to what we’d just done:

Anyway, (long story short) a few hours and several takes later, we had four passable tracks laid down, and I had to find my way to my next appointment – dinner with long lost relatives, my dad’s cousin and his family. We’d organised to meet at a tube station in Glasgow called Hillhead, and so I asked one of the sound engineers in the recording (charming bloke) where I could find the nearest tube station so that I could take the tube to Hillhead. He started to point me in the right direction, and (because I’m an information junkie) I asked how long it would take me to get from that tube stop to Hillhead. He gave me a wierd look and then laughed, telling me that the station he had directed me to was infact, Hillhead!!!

I had a good three quarters of an hour to fill, so being Scottish, the sound engineer (total champ) saw this as an excellent excuse to “look after the artists”, knock off early, and take me for a pint at the local pub.

Half a pint on an empty stomach later (we’d not eaten all day, which is often the way of things when one gets into recording), he directed me towards Hillhead station, and I stumbled off to meet my First Cousin Once Removed, lovely lady by the name of Sue.

This was the first time ever (that I can recall) that I have met family of mine, where not three, but FOUR generations of family were present – Great Aunt Monica ( my Irish grandpa’s little sister), her daughter Sue (my dad’s cousin), Sue’s daughter Claire, AND Claire’s baby son Johnny. Oh my god, but was Johnny ever the cutest baby I’ve seen since forEVER! It’s great to know that I have such wonderful relatives in Glasgow, a real comfort, to be honest.

For the World Piping Championships are here!

You know you’re truly in Scotland when you wake up to the distant sound of bagpipes wafting through the window. The university where we are staying has overnight become home to a host of piping bands from all around the world, including the Nunawading Pipe Band (from our home town in Melbourne!). They’re here to take part in the European Piping Championships this weekend, and then I assume that most of them will stay on for the Glasgow International Piping Festival, and the World Piping Championships here in early August.

I was walking across the campus today, on my way to the gym (finally back at the gym after 2 weeks absence, thank christ!), and I walked through a garden where a pipe band was having an impromptu rehearsal. The sight of it, the sound of it, sent a frisson of excitement down my spine, and I had this manic grin on my face all the way to the gym. If there’s one place in the world where you are guaranteed to find pipers on ever corner, at every turn, it’s Glasgow in early August, when pipers converge from all over the world for this festival.

This is, after all, a major reason why we’re here – Mark is one shit-hot piper, and even as a mere fiddle player, I’m feeling the vibe of this festival (which hasn’t even STARTED yet!) take over. I’m fully wishing now that I’d followed through with my childhood desire to be a piper – but blowing into the practise chanter when I was a kid practically gave me a brain aneurism! No matter, I get to be cool by association… I’ll just keep telling myself that!

Patty J, you’re not the only one who’s asked for pics of us on stage, and this morning, Mark showed us the review they put up on the Hebridean Celtic Festival website about our show there (the one on thet Isle of Lewis, in Stornoway). There are pics there (click here for the link), but it was the review that totally blew us away. Wow. They really liked the show!! Here it is, for prosperity’s sake:

Poet a-wandering and a-wondering

It’s the final night of the best Hebridean Celtic Festival yet and anticipation is running high. Will it be as special, memorable and – let’s face it – life-enhancing as the previous nights? Which are the best new rumours circulating? Why is the HCF like Christmas in July? And just why is the HCF so flicking cool?

First things first. I’m learning about this journalist malarkey. You’ll remember my Y-shaped Q from the other night and all that shiznick? A humble poet and novelist, I’m happier mingling with the real people, queuing with friends – it’s all part of the festival experience, right?

No. Not if you’re a journalist. I’ve adopted a tried and tested journalistic technique. Possessing, as I do, one of those silver open-sesame festival wristbands that gain me access to anywhere in the known universe and also a Media pass (renders journalists susceptible to invisible bribery via free alcohol), it seems I simply don’t need to queue like real people do at all. Now I’m an important figure in the world of surreal journalism I can simply swan past the lines of impatient, desperate-to-see-their-idols human beings/midge-food and swagger on through the security checks with a haughtily dismissive question bellowed at blue-tent volume: ‘Don’t you know who I think I am?’

That’s the theory. Truth is, on the last night an optical illusion occurs and it seems there is no queue anyway. Some festival-goers from elsewhere (actually, shouldn’t we call them festival-comers?) unfortunately can’t stay for the Saturday night due to work, travel arrangements, and so on. Many do, of course, stay, but the crowd seems to pace itself better – result: it seems there is no queue , but once you’ve been in the tent a little while you realize, hey, wait, actually there are thousands of people here.

Mark Saul, whose band opened tonight’s gig and provided an unequivocal highlight of the festival, even said at one point: ‘Where have all these people come from?!’

I feel so, so sorry for those festival-comers who missed the Mark Saul band’s adrenalised performance. More than one person I spoke to said it had been one of the best gigs they’d ever seen. I wholeheartedly agree, for although Mark Saul was something of an unknown quantity to me, his band in fact turned out to be the revelation of the festival. I mean, their musicianship – pipes , guitar, fiddle and drums (complemented by samples) – was spectacular: fast, emotive and tight. This band deserves to be bigger than Australia.

The Melbourne quartet wowed an ever-increasing audience with their massive, melodic songs, their humble good nature and their – this was so clear – world class musicianship.

One of the most laudable elements of the Hebridean Celtic Festival is the manner in which the organizers are happy – eager, even – to take risks with overseas bands that are relatively unknown here.

Not that booking Mark Saul’s band represented anything of a risk. Their fusion of pipes, flute, fiddle, guitar, drums and electronica was not gimmicky (as is the case with some bands), it was outstanding, it was a genuine and successful attempt at melding the best aspects of disparate musical forms into an uplifting, dynamic new realization.

Importantly, their samples – including everything from a happily recognizable teuchy voice to a train – were appropriate additions to superbly crafted songs rather than pieces of superficial aural wallpaper, as is sometimes the case in bad dance music.

Mark Saul has done well to find musicians as talented in their fields as he is in his. The amiable Aussies provided the final HebCelFest audience of 2005 with a near-flawless treat and it was amusing to watch the guitarist play the guitar behind his head, as if he was confusing the Isle of Lewis with the Isle of Wight.

This gig rocked, rolled, danced and Mark Saul’s band easily won over the crowd. The audience loved them, they loved the audience and furthermore they loved the fact the audience loved them (and vice versa). If you see what I mean.

Mark Saul’s band have so many terrific songs that missing one of their gigs is a crime against the unwritten rule you have that life is for enjoying.

Yet again the local rumours proved unfounded. There was a story going round that Capercaillie would be playing a surprise number or two because their fiddler (or, as it was reported to me, their fiddlist) was allegedly seen in town. Better still was the rumour that Donnie Dotaman would be crashing the stage at midnight to provide an anthemic version of ‘An Tractar a th’ agamsa’ by popular demand. (Though the Elvis Presly rumour I reported proved only half true; he’s actually playing the Festival Club next year).

Things turned balloontastic as Shooglenifty took to the stage for the final concert of this historic festival. The band mentioned that they played in Stornoway’s town hall ten years ago to 150 people, and now here they were playing to many thousands of excited punters.

Improbably featuring a Billy Connolly lookalike on fiddle (and what a stupendously good fiddler he is), Shooglenifty’s music really does defy easy categorisation. For all their talk of Acid Croft (B’ eolach do sheanmhair air an acid croft) and hypnofolkodelica (easier to listen to than pronounce), their sound is quite unique, blending more influences than you could list while dancing heavenwards on their musical trampoline.

Shooglenifty have something of a cult following and it’s easy to see (hear) why. Their inventive musical shapes set patterns flowing through the ears that are akin to the way that Celtic knotwork attracts, pleases and won’t let go off the eyes. They had the audience in the palm of their hands.

And the audience wouldn’t let them go until they had done a second encore!

Thus the festival ended with yet another memorable gig. It used to be that Christmas was the time of year when ex-pat islanders came home and met up with friends they hadn’t seen for ages. Now not only does the Hebridean Celtic Festival provide Leodhasaich with an excuse to come back, it also encourages people from all over the world to visit our island.

This festival has been universally acknowledged as the biggest and best yet. It brings in over one and a half million pounds to the local economy, it showcases our island’s beauty and its warm-hearted people to the world and it provides thousands of people with memories they will never forget. How cool is that?

The Lewis penchant for indulging in a little healthy pessimism soon encourages the mind towards gloom: Yes, it was a great festival, they cry, but the organisers can’t possibly top that next year.

Can’t they?

Wait and see!

I’m sitting in the dining room of a B&B owned by a lovely Orcadian couple called Katherine and Bill. I use the term “B&B” loosely – it’s their home, and they’ve taken in boarders, and billet any band which comes through to play at the venue where we performed last night – Fusion Nightclub.

Before I tell you about the gig, lemme just say a little more about Katherine and her husband Bill – Mark and I were sitting at breakfast this morning, and heard them talking to each other in the kitchen. No matter how hard we tried, we could really only understand one word every 15 seconds or so. Finally my curiosity got the better of me, and I had to ask if they were speaking English, or some form of Gaellic. They laughed at me, and told me that in fact, they were speaking Orcadian, which is … Almost English, but not quite. From what I could gather, it was essentially English, with wildly different pronounciation and vocabulary. Seriously, it could have been some norse language, as far as I could have known. In fact, this is not far from the realms of imagining – Orkney used to belong to the Vikings, and they still feel quite strong ties to Norway. When I first heard Katherine speaking, I thought her accent was a little Scandinavian. Fascinating stuff. Mark tried to get a few samples of their speech, but they went all shy as soon as they saw the recorder…

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The gig last night in Invershin was… Interesting.

I have nothing but nice things to say about the venue itself – the couple who own the pub in Invershin were just the nicest pair – ex-pat Americans from upstate New York, who were possibly the best hosts I’ve met so far in Scotland, and the whole thing was a family affair.

One of their older sons was in charge of the P.A., and the light show was designed by two of the older sons. Their youngest, who couldn’t have been older than 8, was the perfect little gentleman to me, showing me to my room. One of the middle sons was waiting on us at dinner time, and he couldn’t have been older than 13 or 14, with impeccable manners and the perfect hospitality industry manner.

I cannot recommend this place more as a place to stay if you’re ever travelling in Scotland – it sits next to a little river, and under an oldish looking railway bridge which looks more like a Roman aqueduct than a bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a castle which is the flagship for the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. Everything was green and lush, the pub was comfortable and cosy, the rooms were clean and bright, and the vibe was delightfully laid back, with a relaxed family atmosphere. I definitely want to get back there.

The stage was our first fully outdoor venue, and despite my initial misgivings as soon as we arrived – the place was still recovering from the rave the night before – it turned out that their audio and lighting set up was good enough for Jamie to pump out a decent sound, and enough for the coppers to come later on to tell the DJ to shut it down cause the neighbours were complaining. Jamie had nothing but praise for the “knowledgeable kids” (ie Molly and David’s kids) who knew the system back to front. Bottles of insect repellant were passed around, along with incense sticks to offset the smell, and onstage there was added protection against the midges, including fans blowing a gale onstage, supplemented by heaters.

At this point, some of you, dear readers, may be asking about the midges, as in, wtf is a midge?!? Well, the answer is simple. It’s a beast which is essentially irritating as all f**k. Tiny little thing the size of a gnat, but with teeth like a mosquito. They plague Scotland during the summer months, and sink their little teeth into anything/one they can find. We Aussies have been pretty lucky so far – they seem to be a little confused about the foriegn cuisine we offer them, and prefer to be more parochial, nibbling instead on the host of local cuisine (ie the scots).

I’ve been here two weeks, and have only had one midge bite, despite the fact that walking around outside at night in Invershin, I could wipe my face and have my hand come away with a few squashed midges… Ew.

Despite the smallish crowd (due in part to the rave which had happened at the venue the night before), the punters were the hard-core stayers, and were loud and appreciative. The set itself had a few almost lethal technical difficulties, but the rest of the band was having a fab time with the show. As for myself though, I felt out of sorts and stroppy about the whole thing – I lost the vibe partway through, and couldn’t get it back, to the point where things like the strobe light they had on every now and then almost had me scowling… It wasn’t till Jamie came and made me a cuppa back in our rooms after the show that I started feeling ok again. Some shows, you feel the indescribable “it”, some shows, you just don’t.

The whole lack of vibe thing was in my head though – everyone else, including Dave and Molly (the venue owners), the crowd, even the rest of the band, were happy with the set… Safest to blame it on hormones, perhaps, and leave it at that.

Oiy, but I’m a little behind on the blogging, my apologies.

Our little holiday wound up three days ago, ending with a quick trip to Cape Wrath, the Northernmost tip of Mainland Britain. You can’t actually get there by road, you have to take a ferry over a little loch and then catch the minibus from there to the cape. The weather continued on its cold and rainy vein, and added a lovely touch of windy to the mix at the Cape Wrath. Shannon decided to guard the car (ie he had a really good book to read), but Mark, Simmo and I braved the Cape:

I’m starting to get into this whole self timer photo thing, can ye tell?

Anyway, after Cape Wrath it was back to Ullapool for the next round of gigs. We met up once more with Jamie (aka The Very Talented Mixer, And All Round Top Bloke), and rocked the house in Ullapool to a medium sized but very appreciative crowd. Played a quick session afterwards with a couple of top young players, but ended up crashing well before my time – all this doing nothing, sitting in the back of a car really takes it out of ya!

Next day (yesterday) we trundled into Kermit again (isn’t it funny how everyone gets their assigned seats, and that’s the way it stays? There’s no fighting over shotgun, cause everyone knows their place) and started out on the Road To Skye. There’s a lovely irish folk tune by that name, and the road itself is just as lovely – a long stretch of it runs alongside this gorgeous loch which is reminiscent of Lake Georgia in Canada, or of Tian Shi (see Heavenly Lake entry) except with less high mountains in the background. Just lovely.

We had to make two detours on the Road to Skye, one to Eilann Donnan Castle, where they filmed parts of the movie Highlander. This medieval looking castle was lovely, and seemed to be in ridiculously good nick, but then I found out that the whole thing was in ruins until no more than 100 years ago, then it was rebuilt. The lustre of the place seemed to tarnish a little at that point, but here’s us at the castle:

The next detour was that which I was most excited about, and had been pushing hard as a destination for days and days – Plockton. There are some amongst you, dear readers, who may have been as addicted as I once was to a ridiculously quirky little Scottish show called Hamish Macbeth, which sanctified Robert Carlysle forever as the Official Man Of My Dreams (and many other women’s dreams too!)

Anyway, Hamish Macbeth was actually filmed in Plockton, and I’d read that since the show ten years ago (my god, has it really been that long!?), it had become a huge tourist destination. I went there, hoping to relive a little of my adolescence, and actually walk around the town which had captured so many people’s imaginations. Despite the warm sunny weather (very un-Hamish-Macbeth-like), the detour off the main road started quirkily enough, with this very (VERY!) large highland cow (bull?) just plonked in the middle of the road:

But then we got to Plockton. NOT what I was expecting. It has been 10 years, granted, since the show was on, but really. What business does Plockton have to be so pretty? Or so sunny? What business does the bar (the one, I think, that they used as the bar in the show) have in dolling itself up. I swear, I did NOT recognise the town one bit. Lochinver (the place we had our very first gig) looks more like the town I was looking for. The boys were all delighted with the detour – Plockton really is very pretty – but I have to admit that I was gutted (it brought to mind the lagoon which as a small child I’d imagined to be on the other side of my grandpa’s mountain, where there were mermaids and fairies and pirates. But when I finally managed to climb the mountain to look on the other side, there was as no lagoon, no mermaids, no fairies, not even any pirates, but only a totally unromantic banana plantation).

Apparently the tourism generated from Hamish Macbeth pilgrims have brought so much money into the place that it’s become really quite posh, in a quaint kind of way. Flowers bloomin’ everywhere, palm trees (the weather was really more like Byron Bay than Scotland)

Here y’are with a wee photo:

The Island of Skye is now accessible by a free bridge, so I was spared another ferry crossing. Our time on Skye was only very quick, less than 24 hours in total, but it was brilliant, all the same. We were playing at this smaller scale festival, in a tiny little hall. It had the feel of a country dance about it, right down to the ceilidh (pronounced “Kaylee” for those of you who don’t speak Gaellic) dance they had going. They had a fire twirling crew up from Edinburgh, which included some of the lovely folk who I’d met the previous weekend at the Hebridean Celtic Festival, and a couple of Aussies. Twas an Aussie themed night, despite any of the organisers’ best intentions, I think.

Oh, check out the mountains which we could see out our windows from where we were staying – just stunning.

I wish I had some funny stories or anecdotes about band members to share with you, but they’re really a very well behaved crew.

I suppose I could tell you that Shannon snores so loudly that we sometimes have to reshuffle sleeping arrangements so that he gets the single room that is usually set aside for me as the only girl (not, I hasten to add, a complaint, I mention it only with laughter in my fingertips).

I guess I could tell you that Simmo is getting far more use out of his yoga mat than I’d expected. I could tell you that Mark has started to use his whistle as an action prop and has been replaying ninja numchuck moments whenever we stop for a toilet break – we’ve been playing tunes on the road (to some extent – Simmo’s had the guitar out in the back, and Mark’s been plugged into his electronic practise chanter for hours on end).

I could tell you that Jamie has his phone permanently attached to his ear, and (entering into the realms of mild exaggeration now) the only time you can get a meaningful conversation out of him is when he has no signal – fortunately he’s on Orange, so we get to talk to him plenty. OK, so perhaps it’s not that bad, but in his own words, (and I quote) Jamie “cannot live without his Marlboros, his phone, and his cup of coffee”. I’ll mention here that I’m a big fan of Jamie – he’d just the kind of laid back person who makes the perfect sound engineer – he comes across as totally unflappable, despite the technical nature of what we have going on. And his impressions of Inverness accents have me in stiches regularly.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with this photo – Shannon is NOT a cat person, but at this pub in Smoo, there was this cat who just kept coming back to stand outside our window, two night in a row. It was SO friendly and totally convinced that it belonged inside. So I share with you this gem of a photo:

We’re in Invershin now, waiting for gig to start. More about that next time, cheers for now,
Charlotte

SPOILERS FOR HARRY POTTER

Finished Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince last night….

Click on the “more” link below, or don’t, if you don’t like spoilers…

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When you think about it, it’s not surprising that there are not many folks living here in Northern Scotland – it’s cold and rainy, treeless and windswept, but really quite pretty in its own way. I’m afraid that weather has not turned us into the world’s best tourists – we’ve been kinda hanging out at the hostel. Mark’s sitting under headphones on his practise chanter (the electronic kind) writing tunes, I’ve been inhaling the newest Harry Potter, Shannon’s been experimenting on how best to make a cup of coffee without any of the normal coffee making apparati, and Simmo appears to have disappeared into the windy highlands.

We’re staying in what may be the most basic hostel in Britain. Two separate buildings, one for the commonroom/kitchen, and the other made up of two dorms – one end for the ladies, and one end for the blokes, and is locked during the day time. Shannon took one look at the lodgings last night and declared that he would sleep in the car. Despite this being my first hostel experience, I’ve decided that the place ain’t so bad – it’s warm and dry, and out of the wind, and if the other tenants can be trusted, is so basic that it will make every hostel I ever stay in seem like the Ritz, so it can’t be all bad.

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Have very very limited email time, just an update to let you know that we’re still alive, have just got back from the Hebridean Folk Festival, where we were treated like frackin’ ROYALTY, played infront of a MASSIVE and absolutely wonderful audience (one person up the front was waving this big blue Scottish flag for the whole gig, it was ace!), had a bloody brilliant time, met stacks of cool folk, and was altogether blown away by that festival.

I have been blogging faithfully with long involved accounts of our adventures, and these will be uploaded when I get access to a computer with a USB port, or have more internet time.

Love to you all, Charlotte