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Not a lot to report in the
first few days since my last report other than working away. I did get up
to the clock place in Wallaceburg where I took my grandfather clock for
repair. They tell me no problem in repairing it but it will take
around 2 months as it takes time to get parts.
As it happens I was asked
recently where I'd put the clock so here is a picture while it was in the
house and where it will be going when I get it back...
As you can see it goes in the hall and this
shows it as you come through my front door
It's been hot and dry for
quite some time and some water shortages have been reported in the area.
On Tuesday 19th July we did get a heavy downpower and I also lost some of
the flashing around the garage. This later isn't really much of a problem
as I'm due to get a new garage roof shortly.
Wee bit of flooding in the street
I also got visitors today
from friends of the web site from Sarnia and we had a wee glass of wine
and a grand chat...
On 26th July due to a major
storm I lost my internet connection and it was 26 hours before I got it
back. I had been assured by Cogeco that I would get a very fast response
for any business down time so I was a bit disappointed to say the least at
this long down time. On discussing things with the business
technical support team they recommended that I downgrade my business line
to a lower plan and take out a high speed connection with another provider
so that if one went down I'd always have another connection.
While I appreciate the
advice it seems most peculiar that they should need to recommend that as
they really should be able to sort things out much quicker. I phoned them
at midnight to be told that all Internet connections were up and running
apart from three business accounts of which one was mine. It was
almost 4pm following before I had my connection back. I am thus of
the opinion that this was simply very poor service and not an actual
problem that took a long time to fix.
On Friday 29th I set out at
6.00am to start my journey to the Glengarry Highland Games. While I
may well visit other Highland Games I don't actually intend to document
all the Highland Games I might attend. There are two in Ontario,
Canada that are reckoned to be the top games so I felt I would try and
take a lot of pictures of Glengarry and also Fergus which is in another
two weeks. So.. if you want to read about my Glengarry visit and see all
the pictures I took,
click
here!
So what were my
impressions? Actually it is quite difficult to explain as I've only
been at three other Highland Games, one in Florida with around 10,000
visitors and two in Canada, one at Georgetown and the other in Chatham.
This is certainly the first Highland Games that I have attended where
there were a lot of security people all over the gathering. It's
also the first that I've attended that had a large portion of the core site
set
aside for special people and the first that I've attended that had a
grandstand. My main purpose for attending these games was to talk to
people at the clan tents. Being an historian I am naturally keen to
obtain any information I can so that was really the No. 1 priority.
I also wanted to document
the games as best as I could as apart from Fergus I really don't intend to
document any others. I have never been to a Highland Games of this
size before and on a purely personal note I don't think I'd go back. I
didn't like the high security they had there... it just didn't feel right
to me. I couldn't get very good access to take pictures and any pipe
bands that were performing were so far away or surrounded by large crowds
that you just couldn't get near. The best you could do was go
further out where they were practicing.
While I enjoy hearing the
pipes and drums I am by no means an expert so whether I was listening to a
top band or an average one I probably couldn't tell them apart. I did meet
a few of the Mexican pipe band however and they are going to send me a
story about the band and the St. Andrews Society in Mexico once they get
back home... so looking forward to that.
The games certainly had
around 65 or 70 bands playing at the event and they have a special
competition for pibroch players. I didn't get to hear them mind you.
I only got to see one Highland Dance but that was partly because the
security guard chased me out despite me having an infield pass.
I'm told the tattoo on the
Friday night was really excellent and attended by some 10,000 people. On
the Saturday night there was to be a grand parade of all the pipe bands
but we left before that started and there was to be song and dance at the
beer tent later in the evening. So certainly lots to do.
I guess these large events
are not for me although I'm quite sure for folk that like the very best
pipe bands and pipers and highland dancing they will be in their element.
Most of us Scots don't in fact go to Highland games back home and I'm no
exception. I did enjoy some of the Scottish food on sale and I did
meet some very nice folk and on the whole I got what I came for and that
was to meet the clan tent people. It was a secondary objective to try to
document the games and despite all the pictures I took I didn't feel
I achieved a real story of the games. Anyway... for me this games didn't cut it. It seemed a
somewhat elitist event with far too much security and no go areas for my
liking. The other games I have attended provided much easier access to
everything and a much more informal setting. |
