Spring 2013

Well here we are, allegedly it's Spring, the days are getting way longer and we've been enjoying a couple of weeks of mostly sunshine but it's still freezing cold... I'd like to report that I'm doing all sorts of bagpipey things but sadly I haven't been doing much at all - pipe making has ground to a halt entirely and I'm finding playing to be really draining. It's been coming on for months but now I have a diagnosis - asthma, brought on probably by an allergy to something. As I'm handling hay a lot of the time here on the farm it's got to be the prime suspect, so I don't know how this is all going to work out. Can't escape the hay, can't do much with mouthblown pipes if you can't blow.

But it's not all doom and gloom. I've been playing a bit with Estron - at New Year we had a bit of a sesh in tafarn Sinc, Rosebush, back when my breathing wasn't so bad.

Saint David's Day I was playing bacbib with Pibau Planed in the big parade in Cardiff which went really well. Peni Ediker on D Gallician Gaita and Stef and Henry on drums.
And on International Bagpipe Day, March 10th, which is organised largely by The Bagpipe Society, we (Estron again)  played during the service at Llanwinio church which is a few miles east of here...

Last weekend we were booked to do a Ceilidh in the Stackpole Centre in South Pembs., for a `meditation weekend'. We did actually wonder what sort of meditation weekend has a ceilidh in it, but as it turned out it was a really good do with up to sixty people dancing and really keen to dance as well. About two thirds of them were British Asians who had never come across this sort of thing before but they seemed to have a whale of a time.

Next gig for Estron is in Narberth for an event organised for `Help for Heroes', 27th April, followed by Friday 24th May at Fishgurd Folk Festival. Hopefully my asthma drugs will be doing some good by then otherwise I'm going to have to switch to bellows pipes...