Fin Moore is a true talent as a pipe maker and musician. He’s been a friend for over 20 years, right around the same time I got my small pipes. When we get together we laugh…non-stop. The day after I arrived in Glasgow I hopped on the bus to go visit Fin in the workshop for an afternoon and took some photos of him at work.

During my visit to Glasgow I had a session with Michelle Stewart. No matter where I travel, I can always take comfort that the Cape Bretoners will come out of the woodwork! Michelle now lives in Scotland and is the enthusiastic mastermind behind Bodhran Expert. Always positive, encouraging, and full of great ideas, Michelle is a wonderful teacher…both online and in person!

This is a long post…be forewarned. If I had it my way, I’d post every single photo I took over the three weeks I spent in Sweden with my niece Astrid, because I love her that much. I’m a super proud Auntie, and will be THAT Auntie with a wallet full of photos of her niece (exploding at the seams like George Costanza’s). Astrid loves early morning dancing to old school hip-hop, snowflakes on her cheeks, splashing water all over the bathroom, diddled pipe tunes, and when you squish her cheeks. My sister is a great mom, and Anders is a great pops…which isn’t a surprise to me at all. Counting the days until the next visit…xo.

A rare photo of me here on the blog, taken by my sister Shannon with my Fujifilm Instax Mini.

I’ve known Sheila since we were kids. We were both day-students at the Gaelic College and often met over bagged lunches in the cafeteria with the other 3 day students. We ended up in the same piping classes and played in the same pipe band. When a couple of guys from the Aberdeen Celtic Society came over to the College, Sheila met Calum and…the rest is history. They now live in Scotland with their two adorable freckly kids Christy and Duncan. During my trip over to Glasgow, they came into the city to pick me up and we drove out to the Whitelee Windfarm for their session. Lots of laughs followed until the moment we went for lunch and little Duncan spotted the life-sized skeleton statue in the cafe. He ate his sandwich in tears underneath the table and we bolted once the last bites were chewed.

Best of luck to Shyanne as she heads off to participate in the Miss Teen Canada World as Miss Brentwood Bay this weekend in Vancouver! We had a session in Beacon Hill Park on Sunday morning and just barely missed the hailstorm and snow which started about thirty minutes after this photo was taken.