Wednesday 11 May 2005

on the Mallaig-Glasgow train
It's a perfect day for what is unquestionably one of the great train journeys of the world. It's sunny, it's still, the trees have just come into leaf, there are lambs in the fields, and the train works its way in and out of native forest, with spectacular coastal scenery of mountains and lochs, exploding around you at regular intervals. And you get to be Harry Potter in his car at the Glenfinnan viaduct. The alarmingly steep incline over the loch at Ardnish is quite breathtaking on a day like this. Ben Nevis still has a dusting of snow on the top. And there's Rannoch Moor, the Horseshoe and Loch Lomond to come ... 5 hours of this are good value for £23 I think.

Yesterday Chris, Andy and Nick flew into Manchester in the morning and drove up to Arisaig, stopping off in Glasgow to pick me up and have a quick bounce on the trampoline. We made it to the hall by about 7pm for an 8 o'clock gig, dumped our stuff on stage and went in search of food. For some reason, no-one in Arisaig's pubs feels like cooking on a Tuesday night so Andy and I gave up at 7.30 and went to set the stage, sustained by my supplies of oatcakes, seeds, apples and a flask of peppermint tea; Chris and Nick continued to negotiate the possible appearance of soup in the restaurant at the bottom of the hill. 

Andy and I had fun working our way around the fact that Chris hadn't packed a junction strip, and the chances of finding a distribution box for 115volts and US sockets in the west Highlands is pretty much nil. So we borrowed some microphones, jammed a mic stand up against our slightly wiggly US/UK plug adapter and awaited their return. Chris and Nick made it to the hall around 8.05 with a set list scribbled on the side of a tourist leaflet and on we went. The PZM mic lying inside the Estey and plugged into their little AER amps sounds really good. In fact the Estey and I are successfully making friends now: I've left it with the guys for Nick to play until I meet them in Dunkeld on Sunday.

The gig itself was a lot of fun: winging it with three jet-lagged Americans in front of a cozy audience by the sea is an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Most of the arrangements we know went out the window in favour of radical on-the-spot reworking. In Nick's percussion solo in McDonald's Salutation, he somehow managed to take two completely different grooves (4/4 and 6/8) and morph them together so that you couldn't tell where one finished and the other began. I'm going to listen more closely in our gigs next week - in fact I may go out to the audience and watch.  And I met Elspeth MacMillan, who 20 years ago used to drive me along the single track Mallaig road at 85 mph in a Hillman Hunter estate, and encourage me to play her Bechstein upright piano.  

Afterwards I couldn't find my jacket anywhere (complete with credit cards, iPod, you name it). After a frantic quarter of an hour looking for it, we rang one of the bars that hadn't fed us and sure enough, I'd left it there. Chris and I had a very welcome couple of pints of Guinness before turning in.

So this morning after some fine breakfast and conversation, I was able to go for a short walk around the village and then amble up the track to Arisaig station, trundling my suitcase behind me, to take an unforgettable journey that just happens to get me home. About as perfect a way to spend the early part of Wednesday as I can think of. Now we've stopped in Fort William and I'm joined on the train by some very happy German tourists.