On Tuesday, the final day of carnival, the good citizens of Ptuj all finish work at 12, don their costumes if they haven’t already and hit the town. All the pubs and hotels are full and there is a real party atmosphere in the town. We played around the hotel in the afternoon but spent a large part of the time struggling with our instruments. Moving between the hotel, the snow outside, the shopping centre, the wine cellar and the hotel had really taken its toll on the wood of the stringed instruments and the reeds of the pipes and we were struggling to keep them sounding good. We kept going like the true professionals we are and did our best…

That evening gig was billed as ‘The Scots get to know Slovenian wine’. I know, it’s a hard job. This involved us playing a few tunes in the hotel wine cellar, the wine expert talking for ages about wine, us playing a tune, wine expert talking and so on. The only down side, and it was a pretty big one, was that the wine cellar was very cool with a lot of moisture in the air. This played absolute havoc with the instruments, and Sara’s fiddle became unplayable. My pipe bag absorbed so much moisture it felt like we had been playing outside in the rain. We forced ourselves to taste some of the wine and eat some of the nibbles then went back upstairs to play some more where the instruments started to dry out and were impossible to tune.

After the gig we got dressed up on our Scottish Kurent costumes again and made our way to the carnival tent again where we did the polka with a couple of thousand others in equally ridiculous costumes.

That evening’s gig was titled Scotland vs. Slovenia. There was a local accordion player who would play 3 sets, then we would play 3 sets. By this time we had abandoned all notions of PA and just wandered about gypsy style. We really enjoy this style of playing and seem to be doing it more often at home to, maybe we should make a feature of it.

After our gig we took it a wee bit easier, attempting to catch our breath and keep some energy for the rest of carnival.

That was one AMAZIN trip! Me and Stephen, 3,000 miles in a motorhome with 2 guys I’d never met before going through Scotland, England, France, Belgium, 12 miles of Holland, the WHOLE of Germany, Austria then Slovenia. We left Oban on Monday at 1pm, picked up Rob Welsh (piper, percussionist & spoon dancer – long story) from Lochwinnoch, then picked up Jon Brindley (singer/songwriter, guitarist, fiddle player, pianist, all round talented git) from Wigan.

We drove to Dover and had our first real tune. One of the guys asked about rehearsals and was told by me and Stephen ‘No chance. Rehearsals not allowed’. So we drove all the way. Each takin turns o drivin 4 hrs. When not drivin we tried to get some kip. Once in France that was it – 800 miles non-stop apart from eating and calls of nature breaks – and wee arrived in Ptuj on Wednesday at 9pm. Dumped our stuff and went straight to the main 3,000 capacity carnival tent where we met lots of new friends – the wonderful Simona, with her partner Tomaz, along with Stasa , Dani, Silvo and Silva. I was immediately accosted by Tomaz and Silvo who FORCED me drink about 15 Cuba Libres. It was terrible, honest.

After about 20 mins I looked round and saw the main stage in the tent. I then demanded that Simona organise for us to play there, and I wouldn’t be happy til it happened.

Tomaz said to me ‘3 rules to carnival. 1. cheat 2. drink 3. fight in that order.

Her older brother Silvo said ‘NO! one rule for carnival – FIGHT! Make good fight! Enjoy fight! If you no enjoy fight, you come to me!

To which I said ‘no problem Silvo – you are now my friend’

The tent closed at about 3 and we then went to the main local night club called Super League til 6am. had 6 hrs sleep (the longest sleep I had the whole time) then all week we got our kilts on and played pipes and drums round all the local shops. The first shop we went into was this photography place so my mate could pick up a disk wi photos on it. We went in playin Scottish reels. When we stopped they all gave us a round of applause and said ‘you will drink viljamovka!’ A pear spirit which is very tasty. Got a bottle in the house. And it was the same everywhere. Couldn’t escape the bevy. The 2nd place we went to was a quaint establishment called Old Irish Pub! Superb. We went in playin and the gut poured us lots of Guiness. So by noon we were already quite drunk and it was like that every day.

Our days consisted of:

gettin up about 11

playin pipes and drums in the afternoon and gettin steamin

playin at the town hall on a stage in the main square or

playin in the big local shoppin centre where our job was to follow women around and play pipes and drums at them. Followin them up escalators, in shops. Hilarious. Any wary lookin ladies were promptly surrounded by hairy drunk Scotsmen and bombarded wi jigs and reels.

playin at the Hotel Mitra where we played for our b&b

played at the main tent twice

then stayed at the tent til it closed then Super League til 6am

then bed

then start all over again

We also appeared in the national press where they gave us a really nice write up (in Slovenian) and get this……

WE APPEARED LIVE ON SLOVENIAN NATIONAL TELEVISION!

That was weird but good fun.

One night when playin in the hotel I said to the audience ‘this isn’t about us over here and you over there, you’re meant to join in. If you can sing a song the whole way thru, we’ll back you up’.

To that a girl asked ‘Do you know Country Roads?’

‘Yes – sing it then’

Then the whole place started singin that bloody song in Slovenian. Weird!

Then Jon sang a few of his trademark songs, such as ‘I want to drink your blood’ sung in a Bela Lugosi kinda way, and Escape from Alcatraz, which was also very silly.

Another night in the hotel I was sittin playin and I looked up and all the seats were taken. I looked up again a wee while later and there were people standin round the seated punters. I looked up again a wee while later and there were people all the way up the stairs sittin watchin us. Great.

At the tent nearly all Slovenia’s top pop stars were there (oooo!) and we met most of them including this saucy wee thing in a catsuit. Cant remember her name. Me and the other dudes went right to the front of the stage and made various gesticulations at her. Great fun. All this plus one of Serbia’s finest gypsy brass bands. Absolutley tremendous. Never danced so much in my life.

So we did all this for a week solid. before we left we went to the local winery and I picked up 6 bottles of Slovenian champagne, a free bottle of white wine and a bottle of viljamovka. All for about £30. Simona’s folks have their own vineyard and they presented us with 2 litres of their wine and a bottle of Slivovic (schnapps) (rocket fuel). One night we were invited to Simona’s folks house for dinner where we stuffed ourselves wi goulash and home brewed wine and slivovic. When waitin to leav Silvo came up and said ‘Hey! More wine!’ and while waitin to leav I must’ve drank a bottle in about 5 mins. Steamin again.

The worst night was the night before we left cos I had to come off the booze, which wasn’t easy. I then made the mistake of drinkin loadsda coffee and stayed awake shakin most of the night.

When we were leavin all the women in the hotel were very upset and were all crying! And we were ordered to come back next year which we are already planning.

We passed the 3,000 mile mark while crossing the border back into Scotland. Took me 2 weeks to recover but I still have some Slovenian champagne, viljamovka and slivovic, photos, videos and loads of ridiculous memories to keep me going til NEXT YEAR!