Or “What IS That Noise?”

We do like to camp. When I say camp I really mean drag the Airstream to a local Provincial Park and spend a couple of days in our mobile cottage, missing none of the conveniences of home.

We have just spent a few nice September days at Rondeau, enjoying the mid-week peace and quiet, and doing not much (other than spending the day with the Grandson, then having to go home to the for a doctor’s appointment). It’s therapeutic.

Our peace was shattered, though, when we both heard what sounded like distant bagpipes, competing with the woodland birds and the rustling leaves. At first I dismissed it, I thought I was imagining things, but I was wrong to do that as the sound became ever clearer and ever closer. It was definitely a lone piper, moving around and treating (!) us to short bursts and truncated tunes wrung out of his (no doubt) tartan-clad wind bag.

It went on for a while, too, although we didn’t catch sight of the piper. With no disrespect to my Scottish or Irish friends, I have to say that a single piper on a quiet afternoon in Rondeau isn’t quite what I expected, or wanted. A full pipe and drum band that I know is about to play, maybe, but someone walking around with a single set of pipes? I couldn’t even think of an occasion that merited this wheezy interlude, bearing in mind that I know they pipe the sun down in Port Elgin every night in the summer.

I was conflicted in my dislikes. The sound of an unsolicited piper on a quiet afternoon, or the fact that someone felt it was a good thing to wander around sharing the sound of his (or her) bagpipes with the other campers.

Ultimately though, he was gone after a mercifully short recitation, so no harm done. I might have to pen a letter to the Parks’ people to ask for a new regulation banning the use of unsolicited bagpipes in the park.