This weeks Mad For Trad as wel as all the others can be found on the

This weeks Mad For Trad is devoted to the living memory of Clarissa Cotton. A wonderful person who's life ended far too soon.

Remember, you can subscribe to the Mad For Trad podcast using the address http://www.mushroomfm.com/madfortrad/feed Just paste that into your podcatcher of choice.

Tonight was the first Mad For Trad to be hosted on Mushroom FM It was great fun. We've had a few new listeners and I'm delighted to say, the usual listeners returned too.

Thanks to everyone for your participation.

The archived show is now here.

Last night, I happily attended the Lúnasa gig to mark the launch of their latest album Lá Nua. This has been in the shops for the past four weeks or so.

However, if you are a listener to Mad For Trad, you’d actually have heard it two weeks before anyone else did. But, that’s not what this post is about.

I love live music. There’s only one thing better than going to a gig and that’s playing a gig but last night, I was immensely happy to simply sit and listen.

To say this gig was absolutely amazing would not do it just is. Every single musician in Lúnasa gave it their all last night. It was obvious from every one

of them that they were there to have a great night and as a result, the audience picked up on that and the whole night came together really well. I know

from gigging myself that nights like that are rare and it was definitely the highlight of my year so far to be on the other side of the gig to experience it.

Lá Nua is a fantastic album that continues to enforce the Lúnasa trademark sound but it is so much more than we’ve ever heard from Lúnasa before. With every

album they get tighter but the arrangements in this album personify what Irish traditional music is all about for me. Great tunes, played well, by people

who love every note their playing, by friends who enjoy playing music with each other with intricate arrangements and ornamentation. When you listen to

Lúnasa you don’t hear the flute, pipes, fiddle, guitar or bass, you hear one sound. That’s great but at times, I’ve feel that it almost eliminates the

showmanship that most musicians enjoy demonstrating. Lúnasa have incorporated just the right amount of individuality by letting each instrument take the

lead or the dominant role at different times in different tracks. Kevin Crawford for example plays the whistle like no other can. He’s got a style that just

blows me away every time. He’s got a great stage presents as well. Cillian Vallely certainly get his fair share of the spotlight. He plays haunting slow airs

filled with emotion and played with the most amazing skill. Sean Smyth, one of the founding members of the band is electric. He’s got a very different style

than Kevin and when changing from one musicians solo to the other, it’s like getting a breath of cold air to wake you up after you get settled in a warm

seat. Ha-ha. That’s the best way I can describe it. When the two play together, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. They jell seamlessly

without effort. Then again, the same can be said for all the musicians in the band. Paul Meehan, the guitar player has amazing rhythm. He seems so quiet and

relaxed but wow that man sticks the entire sound together. Trevor Hutchinson has an abundance of experience. I would guess that he can play any style. He

seems to just lie across the Lúnasa sound adding a core that helps to make the sound immediately identifiable. Of course, there are other groups with bass

players, but the structure he brings almost makes up the trademark signature of Lúnasa.
Now, there’s one thing to be aware of when I’m listening or playing Irish music, Take me as I am, or don’t take me at all. I become unreserved, uncaring,

unfazed by anything. All inhibitions go out the window. It is the most relaxing thing I can do.

I’m telling you this to introduce you to my thinking when I’m in that kind of environment.

At the gig last night, they had played about four or five sets and the place was hopping! The buzz was unbelievable. The people who came were obviously fans

of Lúnasa in particular.

They introduced a set of tunes by saying that it was one from their first CD, The merry sisters of fate. Kevin commented that when they released it, people

told them they’d win awards for it. My heart nearly leapt onto the floor beside me. I’d been told of how this set of tunes is completely different live to

listening to it on CD. In fact, it was this set of tunes that was used to introduce me to Lúnasa for the first time. I remember the night and the place and

the time still because it honestly changed my outlook on traditional music and gave me a whole collection of artists to link to from this band. The set is

called “Good morning nightcap”.

But, what if they didn’t play it? What if they were talking about some other insignificant tune on that album? I couldn’t take that chance. They! Had! To!

Know! I! Wanted! “Good morning nightcap!” So, I made it known... To Emma’s complete and utter mortification, I shouted it as loud as I could. It just came

out! Before I could stop myself. The thought’s running through my head were, I’ll not forgive myself tomorrow if they play a different tune and I didn’t

shout something......... So, I did! I can’t help these things. Nor would I want to! Ok, they may not have heard me, and they probably already had made

their mind up to play good morning nightcap but I don’t care. I took the chance! Sometimes, you just have to grab the bull by the horns and give him a good

talking to. And that’s what my brain did last night.

A few people around us turned suddenly, I think I frightened them. Hahahahaha.

Na. I still don’t care. I was too over joyed to hear this fantastic piece of music played live.

The only thing that bothered me a tiny tiny bit is Emma cannot understand how cool that is. How fantastic it is for me to finally hear it live. I suppose

when you’re not a musician, you just don’t have the same meaning behind some music. Or, maybe you do but .... ah, who knows?

So, after they finally played it, I was on cloud nine for the rest of the night. In fact, I’m still on cloud nine. I haven’t stepped down yet. Nor do I

want to for a long time yet. I listened to the video that I’ve now included below a few times today and I remember why this tune is so damn fantastic.

Sorry if you don’t get it. But to explain, right, it starts off with the drones on the pipes. Then the regulators play a theme that will continue through

the first bit of the first tune. Then the guitar comes in with that cool rhythm. Then the fiddle. The way they build up the tune is completely unusual and

it really complements every instrument. Even the second tune. When you hear it, you’d think it’s in e minor if you are a whistle or a pipe player until you

let it sink in a little and you realise he’s playing a C whistle with the same fingering as the E minor on the D when in fact he’s playing D minor on a C.

ON the third tune then they go to G with everyone joining in. It is just amazing.

After the gig, I was delighted to meet up with all the members of the band except Sean. Emma spoke to him while I was talking to Cillian for an extended

amount of time. As anyone who knows Irish traditional pipe players, you’ll know that when we get together, we can talk for hours on end about different

pipes, pipe makers, tuning, new sets; new players... the conversations can go on and on forever! I got the CD signed as well.

I’d write more but my lunch break is ending shortly so I better get back to do some work and this has already gone to three A4 pages so you’re probably sick

of reading.

A few other things to remember as well were, before the gig, we got talking to two sisters from Donegal. Eleanor and Unna. Eleanor plays the concertina and

Unna plays the flute. I could tell they were as delighted to be there as I was. The two of them were great craic and actually regularly play at a session

that I've not been to in quite a while. Funny, although we've been going there for quite a while, we'd never crossed paths before Thursday night. I get the

impression that their family is very musical. I can’t wait to have a few tunes with them in the next month or so.

After the gig, I was approached by Mikey Smith, a piper legendary for his technique. He gave me a CD that he recorded a few years ago and I'm still enjoying

it even now as I write this. Mikey has always impressed with his very tight piping and this quality is very much pronounced in this album.

Over all, Thursday's Lúnasa gig was the best gig I've been to in a very long time. I can’t wait until the next one.

The video I've been talking about? Good morning nightcap. Hearing is believing.

Slowing things down a little:

Featuring the guitar at the start: This fella is fantastic.

I have two other videos. I might upload them if people ask me to.

I'm going to keep this brief because I've still to get ready to go to work.

I've begun broadcasting on Mushroom FM, an Internet radio station. Yesterday I filled in for a broadcaster that couldn't make it. It was a three hour slot and You'll hear the audio from it at This Mushroom FM page.

Note, Mad For Trad has moved to Mushroom FM and now airs on a Tuesday from 7 to 9 GMT +1.

Mad For Trad has been hosted on this website for the past six months. In that time, Every Saturday, from 7 to 8 GMT +1, you've heard crazy music, Crazy stories and crazy broadcasting from well, me.

This crazyness is going to continue.

But in a different home, a different time, a different station, a different duration, a different everything.

Well, a different everything except the show is still called Mad For Trad, I'll still play the very best Irish traditional music known to man, dog or beast and it will still have the usual mixture of strangeness thrown in for good measure too.

So. for the details:

Station	Mushroom FM. the home of the fun guys.
Day:	Tuesdays.
Time:	7 to 9PM GMT +1, 2 to 4PM Eastern and 11AM to 1PM Pacific.
Show address:	www.MushroomFM.com/MadForTrad

Come on.
Now you have no reason not to listen. It's a perfect day and time for you.

See you next Tuesday.

BTW, this hasn't been released anywhere else. Keep it to your self ok?
Can I trust you? Good. Now, keep it that way.

Or I'll send the lads around.

It's unusual for me to blog twice in one day, but you really need to take a look at this. It's incredible! This fella is playing the whistle while using circular breathing. I've never heard anything like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWpv7w5kNk4&feature=youtu.be

Interestingly, I felt light headed while listening to him as being a whistle player my self, I know what it's like holding a note for too long and trying to catch up. I kept expecting him to phraze things by taking a quick breath but that breath never came! Astounding!

Seirously. Even if your not a musician or you have no interest in Irish music, your still going to appreciate this tallent.

Hmmmm. I'd love to be able to do it. Any tips?

I was working on a set list last night and in case the singer isn't sure of all the words, no offence, it can happen to anyone when you have a set list this long, I decided to find all the words to the songs that we will be singing.

So, here it is. The lyrics to 30 Irish ballads and songs.

I decided to post it on this website in the Music room just to show that when organizing a gig, I can organize the whole thing from equipment to transport to the set list and even to providing words of the songs to the singers. :)

I'm sorry.
I don't know why I didn't do this before now.
It's done now though.

You can now bring the audio from digitalDarragh.com with you on the road. So. if you've missed mad for trad, or you want to listen to new recordings added to the Music room, point your podcatcher to http://www.digitaldarragh.com/podcast/feed

You can also now see all of the audio on the site by visiting The podcast page.

There are now links to this page dotted around the site. If you go into the Mad For Trad page, you'll obviously see it in the main content but it's also now a link that appears under mad for trad in the navigation menu on the left. Similarly, if you go to the music room, a link will appear under that menu item to point you to the podcast also.

What can I say. I'm all about Accessibility here. No matter what your doing, there should be at least two different ways of doing it. Some people see it as complicated. I see it as offering choice. The website will continue to be easy to use though.

There are a few other changes on the way. Hopefully you'll see them shortly.

My sincerest thanks to Kerry Doyle and Stuart Lawler For doing Mad For Trad for me this weekend. They did an absolutely fantastic job!

Listen to this weeks Mad For Trad via this link.

Stuart has a show every saturday from 3 to 5PM GMT, 7 to 9AM Pacific and 10AM to 12PM Eastern. Join him for it. He talks to a lot of people live and regularly has guests in studio too.

Last night was great. I went to one place called Tigh Coili. I was told by a really nice harp player that it would have a nice relaxed session from around half 6 until half eight. She was right. The musicians really knew each other very well. There's a very funny story about what I did there but I'll leave it until the next mad for trad to share with you. Anyway, we got talking to a woman who really enjoyed the music. Without knowing it, she had decided to follow me to the next session in a pub called an Pucán. That's almost right across the road from the hotel we're staying in by the way. It couldn't be in a better location! Anyway, after the first session we went back to the harp players apartment for an hour or so just to catch up. It's been about two years since I met up with her so it was great to see how she was getting on. That's the thing about Irish music. I have a group in my phone for almost every county in the country. No matter where I go I can usually find a musician there who I can ask where the best sessions are. I usually meet these people at music festivals such as the Willy Clancy festival in Milltown in Co. Claire. Anyway, we left her apartment after a while and made our way up to the next session only to find that this woman had been waiting on us to arrive. Not only that but she told the band who were playing that they should let me join them for a while. I was happy listening. They jelled really well together but I never say no to playing some music so I excepted their invitation when it was given. The guitar player, Shane was absolutely fantastic. I'm hoping to meet him to play more music today sometime. I'll upload a video to Youtube shortly with a recording. Funnily enough, the manager asked me to go up again when I finished the first time.

This is the video from last night. Remember, this is the first time I ever played music with this man. It was fantastic fun!

Aha. As promised, earlier today, I posted the archive of last nights Mad For Trad show to the audio section of the website. Of course, the link was posted to Twitter but, for those of you who read the blog, I thought you might want some notification that it's available as well.

So, Listen to Mad For Trad for the 13th of March 2010 via this link.

It's really simple to listen. Click on this link: http://live.digitaldarragh.com/madfortrad.m3u That's all there is too it. Listen to the best traditional Irish music available on the net.

Let me first say, I really loved this CD. Of course, my comments here are subjective and kind of critical unfortunately. But, non the less, I love John's playing, and I think this CD is definitly going into my favorites collection.

Track 1. Wow! I love this slow air. It's just really simple. It shows off the range of the pipes. Everything is also so balanced. I'll agree with others who have commented on this CD online. It's a really bold and daring way of starting a CD. But he not only pulls it off but I wouldn't be surprised if he starts off a fad!

Track 2. Starts off with Hmm. Is that a bazoky? It's accompanying the pipes. Of course, it goes together really well. But, it's building up to the big finish for so long I'm left waiting for it. And in the second tune, I get some of it. It's like a tease! He knows listeners are waiting for it. So, he leaves it just for another second longer just to build up the suspense. I'm loving the harmonies by the whistle in this. It's really mixed too. A good use of stereo. Fiddle is in my left ear, plucking on the strings is also in my left, the bodhran is kind of centred, chords are in my right along with the pipes and the whistle is kind of in my right.

Track 3. All I could think of when I heard this track at the start was, I've heard these tunes a lot before. Michael McGoldrick has played them, Lunasa has too. And, I'd assume that considering Lunasa played them he'd steer clear. Just because there are so many similarities between the arrangements. And, after all, he was their piper for years until Niall Valldy stepped in. The tunes are played flawlessly. Again, like track 2, he leaves us waiting for the other instruments to join in. His drones and regulators sound fantastic. I have to also say that the bridge from the second to the third tune is really nice. Also, in the third tune, the chords on the guitar are nice and minimalistic but still carry the rhythm nicely. Oh, you know what I really love about this track though? The whistle continues on at the end with the harmony but it's written so well that the harmony sounds like it could be a tune all on its own!

Track 4. Well, wow! I'm kind of impressed. That is on an A whistle I heard people say? It couldn't be! Is it? It sounds too low to be a low A whistle. The air is nice. Not my personal taste, but it's still very ....... nice.

Track 5. Now, that started with a bang. That's a bit more like it. I don't think his whistle playing packs as much as his pipe playing. He's no doubt a fantastic player but I rather him on the pipes. The tune he's picked here though is fantastic. I love the choppy rhythm. Oh wow. Is that drums I hear? And the pipes too! Now, this is what I want to hear! It just gives a little more punch to the music and varies the arrangement a little. In saying all that, I still like a tune to be a tune. What the fuck is that at the end of the track? It sounds like a broken record with some drunk dood blowing random notes on a whistle in the background! Sorry, I'm crewel. I know.

Track 6. Now, that sounds happy! The guitar sounds fantastic, the piping is tight, it's punchy, not too complicated, and it’s intimate! I love tracks like this because it really gives the musician room to breathe and play around a little bit. I'm waiting for the inevitable bang where the other musicians come in but it doesn't get there when I expect. I love that he's kept me hanging again. He changes from a jig to a really nice real. The drones are prominent again and the guitar resumes its nice rhythmic seat right beside the melody. The third tune still has a smell of Lunasa from it. The way the fiddle joins him just one bar before the tune starts and the basy tones of the piano. It all sounds really like a Lunasa arrangement. Again, it's not surprising. There are links and actually, it's fantastic to see what he does with it.

Track 7. Nice skilled guitar playing. That's not a guitar though. Sounds a bit like a bazoky. Nice rhythm and the whistle carry it off nicely. Like the bridge between the tunes in this track. It's very ambient. The second part of the second tune makes me want to grab an instrument right away. Lovely progression and it all sits together really well.

Track 8. Wow. Another slow air? This is unusual. I'm liking it though. This is his CD. It's his taste. It's nice to see what he's picking. Really nice use of reverb on it too. It’s not constant. In saying that, I've heard him play live with at first light. He puts a lot of thought into the sound of his slow airs. I should post a link to one of his videos some time. He lets the amplification work for him. It's impressive.

Track 9. Nice start to it. I love the crans on the whistle. I can see why he picked it. But, I can’t help wondering why he didn't play this on the pipes? It would have given the tune a bit more body. The second tune delivers on what is now a common theme in this CD. It's tempo changes, we've been joined by the fiddle, and the guitar is relaxed into its fantastic rhythmic playing. We're getting a little bit of electric guitar here too but it's really subtle. Great use of stereo. During the third tune, things get a little plainer but the pipes come in. I think I would have personally liked to hear the pipes come in with the regulators in the background. The energy of the tune has dissipated a little bit because of it. Maybe though this was planned as in the fourth tune, we're getting really cool strong bassy piano playing with strings bruing up a storm. The fiddle and pipes are going mad at it too. So, the energy is well and truly back. I love when the guitar and piano jell so well together.

Track 10. Yep, you've guessed it. The whistle takes us in. But wait! It's different. No guitar. We've piano instead. It's subtle and it's in the background. In my oh so humble opinion, the stereo on this track is a little over done. The whistle is on my left and the piano is on my right. It’s making me dizzy. There should be a little bit of cross over there to even things out. John McSherry does for tempo changes what Simon Cowel does for key changes. a temp change no longer becomes all that much of a difference when it's done in almost every track. I suppose, it could be said that the airs bring things back to basics just enough to allow him some room to do this but I wonder, do people agree with me that it's a little over done. In saying that, I love the tune, I love the whistle harmony. It's mixed so that it feels like the whistle is floating above the rest of the music. Really nicely done.

And, that's the end.
That's all folks.

People have been asking me to put an on demand stream of Mad For Trad up for months now. Sorry I'm only getting around to it now, I had other issues to work out before I could even consider working on this.

So, Here goes: This should be available every week now.

This weeks Mad For Trad featured music from Aselin Debison, Nancie Ker, Moving hearts, Mairin Fahy, Toss the Feathers, Dave Donohoe and Tony Daverin, Robbie Harris, celtic Tenners, davy Spillan, Niall and Cillian Vallely, and others.

We also spoke to Kerrie Doyle and she tells us about Nancie Ker and what drew her to Nancy's singing.

Click Here to listen to the archive ofMad For Trad from the 6th March 2010.

Go Mad For Trad tomorrow night at 7PM GMT, 2PM Eastern and 11AM Pacific.

Just tune in to http://trad.digitaldarragh.com/madfortrad.m3u for all the Traddy goodness.

We'll have some great Irish music all the way from Canada. Believe me, you don't want to miss this girls voice. It's just fantastic. And you won't believe me when I tell you the best thing of all. ...... You'll have to wait until Tomorrow, saturday the 6th of March.

Do you have any requests? Get them in! I'll find anything you can throw at me in the Irish traditional scope.

Add me to messenger at darragh@digytek.com
Skype me by adding digitaldarragh
Or call or text me with your requests at 0877670464.

Hope to see you then.

Due to technical problems outside my control, Mad for trad had to be canceled last Saturday. This week however, it's back! So, tune in to http://digitaldarragh.com:8000/madfortrad at 7PM GMT, 2PM Eastern and 11AM Pacific. Don't forget, www.digitaldarragh.com/madfortrad is the address for the page.

It's no secret that I really love Irish traditional music. From Cara Dillon, Julie Fowlis, Kate Rusby, Michael Mcgoldrick, Tommy Cunnif, Zoe Conway, Mick Ó Brian, Sharon Shannon and John McKusker to Guidewires, Lúnasa, flook, Grada, Stocktons Wing, Slide, Tripswitch and Téada just to name a few, I love it all. I have over a Terabyte of Irish traditional music and I want to share some of this with you.

There are no decent Irish traditional music radio shows at the moment. This aims to fill that void.

The show will air on Saturdays at 7PM GMT, 2PM Eastern and 11AM Pacific time.

At the moment, there are a lot of ideas for making this show something you will want to listen to. Just some of the aims at the moment are:

• Interviews and live performances by known and not so known Irish traditional musicians.
• If permitted by musicians, short recordings of live gigs.
• Interviews with lovers of Irish traditional music.
• Reviews of specific new albums,/li>
• Requests! Tell me what you want to hear. If I don't have it, I'll certainly get it.

The content and format of the show is currently not set. It's going to change and evolve over the next few weeks as people decide what they want. Get your say in by commenting on this post.

This online broadcast is licensed by The Irish Music Rights Organization (IMRO.) Every step possible has been taken to ensure that copyrighted material is respected and artists are recognised appropriately.

The stream will be available at the following address. If this doesn't open in Internet Explorer or Firefox, paste the address into your media player of choice. http://digitaldarragh.com:8000/madfortrad.m3u

These are tunes composed by the legendary fiddle player Maurice Lennon A musician that I am very happy to play music with regularly when he's in Ireland.

The first tune, If only you were mine, was composed by him when he was 19 when his heart was broken after a woman he loved married.

The second Tune, Maeves dance, was composed by him about two years ago. He watched a documentary that told of an Irish family who emigrated to Australia when their Daughter, Maeve was only six. After a short time passed, she was tragically hit by a car and was killed instantly. However, this is not what the documentary focused on. Instead, it focused on an imaginary world that Maeve created and wrote about in great detail in her diary. Maurice was captivated by this world and the second tune, recognised by its waltz tempo was the result of the inspiration he got from this world.

People into Irish music may notice there's a swing to the waltz tempo. Maurice likes to play it this way to attempt to illustrate the child like nature of the world and the inspired tune.

I hope I do them justice.

Oh. let me dedicate this to someone who I really hope has a fantastic music career ahead of them. I've been very impressed with her singing over the past few days.

Use this link to listen to the recording.

Saturday was a very active day. I offered to go for a mooch as Emma calls it around Drogheda. A Mooch is Emma’s word for window shopping. Believe me! Window shopping for someone who can’t see the window never mind what’s behind it is as interesting as watching paint dry. But, Emma attempts to solve this by showing me every! Single! Item of clothing that she takes an interest in. Ah, it’s not bad actually. It’s worse when people don’t show you anything. You’re left standing there in a world of your own while the person you’re with ogles over things their looking at twenty feet away.

I took her for lunch in a small restaurant down a narrow pedestrian street later that day. For the life of me, I cant remember what it was called. But, they do the nicest stake ever!

While doing a bit more mooching, I got a call from a friend. He asked if I’d be interested in doing a gig with him that night. It gets interesting though. When he called me, he had no one else organised. He forgot he had the booking so didn’t have the usual line up. The couple hadn’t even asked for a piper but he knew he could rely on me to pull things together musically if he got musicians that hadn’t played music with us before. He had to organise a base player, a drummer and a guitar player / singer. Luckily, Paul, our usual base player was available. This fella is without a doubt one of the best base players in the country. He can make it talk! He can play everything from pop, rock, jazz, blues, and country to Irish traditional. On drums we had Gary. We hadn’t played with him at all before in fact, I don’t know where Conor found him at all! But he was fantastic. Aside from Alphrid, a drummer that I don’t get to play music with often enough, he’s probably one of the best drummers I’ve heard around Ireland. Some would call his style too busy but I liked it. It was very technical but there was a lot of great improvisation in his playing that really suited. Although he and Paul never met before their percussive styles matched very well. Finding a guitar player and singer was much more difficult. We called over 40 people between us. From Belfast to Dublin we exhausted all our contacts. At such short notice no one was available. An hour before we had to leave for the gig we got a call. Our normal guitar player already knew about the gig and because he knew he couldn’t do it he organised someone else that he knew locally to stand in for him. Olly was his name and he was brilliant. He had done his research and had a lot of our normal set list learned off. He made it his own though by throwing some others into the mix too. It all went very well. He was able to relax into our style very quickly.

So, with a replacement drummer and guitar player / singer, we still got the normal sound of the willing fools.

The bride and groom were ecstatic at the end of it. Very few people were not up on the floor dancing by the end as well so it was a great result.

But, as Connor said while we were carrying the equipment in, “ok, we’ve proven that we can pull a gig out of the bag within a few hours with everything going against us time and time again! Just once I’d like to turn up for a gig without putting together a new band.” He’s right! There’s nothing we haven’t had to plan around.

I’ll have to tell you about the five hour search for a guitar string in Israel during their Sabbath day which is a Saturday that resulted in a visit to some random person’s house and getting lost in a multi story underground car park that had been locked from the outside. But that’s for another boring morning while commuting to work on the train.

Back to this weekend, the wedding was in the most fantastic hotel I’ve ever seen. It’s a place called Darver castle and it’s about ten to fifteen miles south of Dundalk. Huge stone walls, ornate floors, massive archways and very large rooms make this place a site to behold. Getting to the castle is a funny drive. You go down nice main roads for a while then you turn down this road that is just about big enough for a car to get through. It is one of those very old roads with grass in the middle. You meet the three huge gates to the castle after a few minutes. When you go in through the gates you drive through a huge expansive driveway. It’s such a world apart from any other hotel I’ve ever been to.

From time to time, I sit down in front of a mike and play a few tunes. Playing music is a great way of unwinding and a number of visitors of this site like to hear a bit from time to time. So, here goes. Have a listen to these jigs played on the B chanter.