Scotland Tour: Wednesday 16th June

We spent the morning in Lossiemouth, meeting at Roger and Barrie's hosts for a quick meeting and a wonderful view from the balcony. We then wandered into the town to grab a spot of lunch - a few of us having the wonderful dish that is Cullen Skink.

Then after lunch we travelled over the bridges beyond Inverness to Logie Easter. There's only an Inn and a church in Logie Easter, and we were told it might be tricky to find. But when it came to it - there were two huge signposts showing us the way.

Logie Easter is a new venue for us, and we kind of invited ourselves. Sheila Hay ordered 30 vocal scores for a musical, and we spotted that she must have a choir, and so we gave her a call. Thankfully she was willing, and came to see us on her way home from London, and the rest is history! There were some concerns about being able to fit the dance on the performing area, but we ended up with the biggest space of all.

We were greeted with the most amazing buffet, and then we had a lovely rehearsal with Sheila's choir, the Kildary Kroakers - who didn't croak at all and were quite wonderful.

The evening was great fun, and we discovered that with the stage we were able to fit in quite a bit more drama than in other venues.

Scotland Tour: Tuesday 15th June

In the morning most of the Rock team met at the West Beach car park in Lossiemouth to stroll along the beach to the lighthouse. It was a bit of a cool day, but it was lovely to be out and about knowing that we had a whole day without having to travel. The beach was beautiful, despite the constant roar of jet engines at RAF Lossiemouth.

After the walk (which involved the finding of two geocaches - Bill should be proud) we met at St. James' church for lunch and then a team meeting which was led by Simon. He took his team meeting from his own book - Crackpots. Go to http://www.sliceinnovations.com/ for more details.

We had a free afternoon where some of the team went shopping in the town and others wandered along the beach and then evening meals with our hosts.

The performance in the evening was quite exciting. The church was very full indeed, with a huge contingent travelling up from Aberlour specially for it. The dancers didn't have a huge amount of room, and this was compounded by a small boy, Gabriel, running up and down to his dad!

The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful, and the event was introduced and finished off by the minister, Graham. His finishing remarks were great - 'We're here again on Sunday morning at 1030...' And there was loads of time for chatter and bookstall selling over drinks and cakes afterwards.

A fantastic day.

Scotland Tour: Monday 14th June

The following day we had plenty of time to drive the 45 minutes or so to Lossiemouth from Aberlour, so we had a lazy morning (including Annie visiting the Walkers Shortbread factory) and then a team meeting in Craigellachie church followed by lunch. Laura led the team meeting (hence the photo of her and Felicity looking particularly holy).

Kind of on route to Lossiemouth - well, not at all, a bit of a detour - is the Glenfiddich distillery. We decided to go there for its free tour, and we had a wonderful time, particularly at the end with the free samples...

Then we arrived at St. James' Church in Lossiemouth, which has one of the most amazing views from outside its front door, and the most amazing stained glass window inside. We met our hosts there and then went our separate ways for the evening meal.

In the evening we had a rehearsal with the choir, who had been wonderfully trained by Kathleen Robertson. The instrumentalists were once again supplemented, this time by Deborah Noble, a fabulous violinist from Elgin. She had also been part of the orchestra in Aberlour. Deborah has played with us several times in the past, including taking part in the string section for the recording of the Precious and Honoured album.

There was not a lot of space for dancers, but that is what rehearsal is for! We also had a good set of mics and were helped by Hamish with the sound from St. James'.

The highlight of the rehearsal was the lovely time of worship and prophecy we had after song 15. One of the choir even sang out a solo in response to the prophecies brought by the cast. God has been really using that section of the musical throughout the whole tour, and the team were growing more confident in listening and singing out what they thought God was saying. It is great to give God time to speak in whatever we do.

Scotland Tour: Sunday 13th June

On the Sunday morning we met in the church car park before it started filling up for the Davidson's Mains service, and then we travelled for 3 hours to get to Charlestown of Aberlour in Speyside - Distillery country.

Like the previous day, this was to be another busy time with both the rehearsal and the performance on the same day.

The rehearsal was quite frantic as there was lots to set up - as well as a choir there was also a big orchestra - an amazing feat in such a small town. The orchestra was made up of a flute, cello, trombone, cornet, 2 violins and a lad who played both violin and saxophone (not at the same time). The cornet player was Shuna Dicks, who was also the minister of the church. At the start of the performance we sang three hymns too, and even more instrumentalists supplemented the orchestra.

The choir were wonderful - 25 strong - trained by Maureen Anderson, who was our main organiser for the event. The choir were supplemented by a few singers from Lossiemouth, which gave them a good preview of what to expect over the following days.

After the rehearsal we had an amazing buffet dinner in the cafe at Aberlour station, which is right next to the church. The railway is now disused, but the station still stands and has been converted into a cafe and museum. Last time we came to Aberlour we played on the putting green just outside.

In the evening we had a good size audience and it was a lovely performance. Devon was wearing a lapel mic, which stopped working half way through with a big bang. A lot of improvising was required with the remaining hand-held mics afterwards, but we managed.

Once again, huge thanks to Maureen and all involved with Rock in Aberlour - it was wonderful to be with you again.

Scotland Tour: Saturday 12th June

We had a brief team meeting at Janette Tait's house and then left for Edinburgh. Barrie's car took the scenic route and ended up having a drink in a village fair before being stopped by a whole group of pipers at another village. All arrived safely in Edinburgh eventually though, including Felicity who flew up in the morning. We were also joined by Helen Moss, who is a flute player we regularly see on our Grange music week. Helen has just graduated from Edinburgh, studying music.

We immediately set to work getting sorted out with microphones and space for dancers. We were helped by Catherine, who knew her way around the sound system and who eventually cooked us our evening meal too. Amazing!

The choir trainer Philip Coad had done a fantastic job. The choir was not huge, but they made a wonderfully blended sound and were incredibly responsive to Roger's conducting. In the afternoon rehearsal we were joined by a very special member of the choir - a trainee guide dog.

After the rehearsal we had a wonderful meal of jacket potatoes, and then a few of the men disappeared - only to be found later asleep in their changing room. Obviously the schedule was far too much...

The evening performance clashed with England's first game, which meant there was a smaller audience than usual, but they seemed to really enjoy it - certainly they had a better evening than those who stayed at home to watch the football.

It was brilliant to share with Philip and the choir at Davidson's Mains in Edinburgh again. They are deciding at the moment as a church how best to use their fabulous buiding resources, so our prayers are with them at this time.

Scotland Tour: Friday 11th June

We had the morning and some of the afternoon free, so the team split up to explore the countryside surrounding Newton Stewart. Laura, Annie and Alyson's host went to the gem museum together, Roger and Devon stayed in Newton Stewart while the rest of the team travelled up to Glen Trool in the Galloway Forest. It was a lovely morning, and great to get some fresh air. We received a message from Roger at lunch time - Devon had suggested they have the senior citizen's special for lunch, with Devon pretending to be Roger's carer!

In the afternoon we had a team meeting - almost the complete team together as Laura R, Marilyn and Amy had arrived from Nottingham. Unfortunately Laura was unwell and not able to dance.

Jane, one of the Newton Stewart group, provided a fantastic tea of soup and sandwiches - all the more impressive as she arranged for Laura to go to her house and sleep during the performance and managed to organise food for the after-show party!

The performance went really well, despite Laura's illness and one of the microphones giving out. There was a really fantastic audience who were really receptive, and lots of great conversation afterwards.

Then all of the choir, team and some of the audience travelled back to Newton Stewart to Jane's house for the traditional after-show party. It was great to socialise and share with so many people. Thanks to all who were involved in organising this trip to Newton Stewart and Wigtown.

Scotland Tour: Thursday 10th June

On Thursday 10th June most of the CMM team for the Scotland tour gathered at the office ready for the big journey up the M6. It was a long journey so we made sure we had lots of stops - but there was one we didn't really want. The M6 around Preston was completely solid because of an accident.

But the journey was a good one and we arrived at Cinnamon in Newton Stewart only a little bit late. Cinnamon is a Christian Bookshop/cafe run by Janette and Angus Tait, who were our main contacts in the Newton Stewart area. We were given a lovely meal there and then traveled to Wigtown for our rehearsal- about 6 miles from Newton Stewart. The County Buildings were the venue for the rehearsal and the performance, and we had an exciting time setting up, with Simon, Laura and I becoming honourary technicians. This was in fact a bit of an introduction to the whole tour for Laura, who often found herself in control of sound as well as the powerpoint. So at Wigtown she had to press play and pause on the CD, make sure the projector slides had been moved on correctly, and control the mics, which would have been an easy task but for the buzzing which meant they had to be turned down completely between every song!

The choir were fantastic (trained by Colin) and it was lovely to get to know them during quite a hectic rehearsal. We were also put up by many of the choir members over the two nights we were in the area, so huge thanks to them!