Another month, another blog. What do I write about this time?  A friend of mine, Debbie from Missouri has a blog also but it’s not a sailing blog.  Just a personal blog, however, she manages to post something on it almost everyday, which I find really amazing.

https://beingauntdebbie.com/

I suppose that if I really dug deep, I could do a weekly posting, but sailboat stuff would be thin on the ground (or water).  There is only so much stuff you can write about.  It might be different if I actually lived on the boat and then I would have more things to write about.  Living in a house in the burbs and visiting your boat every week, or sometimes every second week or thereabouts so isn’t so easy for a blogger.

Another friend of mine who blogs, Davey from Wellington in the land of the long white cloud has a blog called “Beer, Bites and Bagpipes – but Mostly Beer”. 

https://davesbeerblog.home.blog/ 

Davey isn’t even as prolific as I am.  He recently went three or four months between postings.  But Davey is back in action and I quite look forward to his blogs, even if I am not a big fan of IPA beers.

Davey like myself is a piper, and if our blogs were about piping, then there would be reams more stuff to write about.  Especially in my case.  After the broken arm incident narrated about in my last post, my arm has been healing nicely, although a bit slower than what I would like and the shoulder isn’t working as it should.  I have been going to physio and it seems to be working with movement slowly returning to my shoulder.  Slowly returning the point of this paragraph, I am back playing my pipes again with our band doing a big comp at Gosford at the beginning of this month.  It was touch and go for a while and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to lead the band out into the competition circle, but with two weeks to go, I was able to start playing with the pipe corps.  The week after that was another band filled weekend with a trip up to Greta in the Hunter Valley for the anniversary of the Greta army training camp and migrant camp.  It was a good weekend and ended up being a lot better than expected.  With all the piping, I am keen to get back into more solo stuff which usually involves piobaireachd.  With this in mind, I have ordered some solo chanter reeds and plan to get my band new David Naill solo pipe chanter up and running.  Since I picked it up in March, I haven’t even gotten around to playing it Australia.  I think I played one or two tunes in Wellington when we were sorting out the pitch but nothing since.  Time and a broken arm have gotten in the way.  During the long break after the broken arm episode, my technique has taken a big nose dive and will require a lot of work to get it back to where it was, never mind pushing it forward somewhat. 

So that’s the state of the nation.  Can you see a possible conflict up ahead?  Just when the band stuff is over and it looks like I can devote my weekends to La Mouette, I am keen to get back into the pipes.  I have even thought about doing some solo comps next year and having a final fling (of the Highland variety) before untying the lines – although that looks like it will be a few years away yet.

Anyhoo, just because we have been busy with the piping scene, doesn’t mean we have been neglecting our sailing lifestyle either.  In fact there has been lots to report.  In just the last few weeks, we have taken La Mouette out for a run with an overnight mooring, met up with one of the cruising couples we sponsor on Patreon and finally gotten around to some of those boat projects that have been piling up.  A la “The Stash” blog of recent times. 

Meeting up with Free Range Sailing’s Troy and Pascale was quite fun and interesting.  If you haven’t already seen them, I recommend that you check them out on EweTube.    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbU2ulPD3rJ4OZCNH7-gjjQ

They are of interest to us as they have a Clansman 30 – very similar to our beloved Compass 28.  In addition, they are Australian and sail in Australian waters.  So all the fish and wildlife etc are all Aussie and we can relate to the whole lot.  Not to mention their accents.  A lot of the sailing channels that we follow have America accents, so it’s good to hear British and Australian accents now and again.  In addition, Troy and Pascale are nice people and very down to earth.  The Patreon meet up at a pub in Newport was fun.  After watching their vlogs for a year or so, when we finally met up with them, it wasn’t like meeting new people.  We knew them, although Deb and myself were total strangers to them and they had to get to know us.  There was another patron there also, Dave from Lake Macquarie and he was good value, another nice person that we have met because of sailing.  I wish I could say the same about the piping world!  You could probably make a movie about the piping world and it would be a melange of “Spinal Tap” and “Strictly Ballroom”.  No Spinal Tap for sailing movies however. It’s funny how all the sailing movies are usually about disasters.  “All is Lost” or “Adrift” and “Mercy”.  The only exception being “Captain Ron”, what a cracker of a movie.  The docking scene in the marina is the best thing ever and not surprisingly, it’s pretty much viral on the Facebook sailing groups.  Another one to check out on EweTube if you haven’t already seen the clip.  But I digress, for the fifteenth time in this blog already.  It’s not waffle, it’s interesting facts strung together to amuse the reader.  Entertainment is the key word here, not education or obtaining a score.  Long gone are the days of submitting work to be marked by teachers.  Although it’s not quite like a Billy Connolly show – I do try and stay on the topic.  Billy on the other hand keeps getting off track, which is pretty much most of his show and at the end, he returns to his original story. 

More waffle next time.