Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year to all the readers of this blog.

Hope you all get the pipes and tobacco you asked Santa for.

December meeting.

For the December meeting, I was joined by Colin and John (who had both escaped from Christmas shopping lol).

John enjoyed some Mac Baren's Navy Flake, in a no name bent billiard before trying some Dunhill's Royal Yacht in a Falcon.
Colin couldn't stay long so just had time for a bowl of Samuel Gawith's Squadron Leader, in a very handsome Savinelli Oscar.
I started the afternoon with some Peterson's Nutty Cut, in a Peterson Donegal Rocky bulldog before moving on to some Mac Baren's Vanilla Cream, in a smooth Peterson 302 Standard System.

Before the guys left, we had the draw for the smooth Peterson 314 Standard System. Congratulations to Myles for having the winning ticket! Hopefully he will have his new pipe in time for Christmas. Thanks again to Rob Young of Gawith Hoggarth for generously providing the prize. There will be more raffles in the future for tobacco and other goodies.

On a side note. This was almost exactly a year after our first meeting. Unfortunately, numbers haven't grown as fast as I hoped but I am pleased to report that we're still having fun!

UKFoPC (update).

Brian Mills, President of the UK Federation of Pipe Clubs, has been in touch with further proposals for the British Championships. As these develop I will put an extra page on the blog dedicated to UKFoPC.

Additionally, Brian has put together ideas for other events for next year, including:

May (26th) Madrid, XXII Campionato de Espana.
June (date tbc). Barcelona Cup in Pipe Smoking.
July (Sun 15th). British Championships, Newark & Nottingham Showground.
October. World Championships, Seville.

If you are interested in any of these, let me know and I will give you Brian's contact details.

Please note the change of date for the British Championships.

British Championship of Pipe Smoking 2012

Brian Mills, President of UK Federation of Pipe Clubs, has been in touch with some more details.
Confirmed date is Sunday 15th July 2012, at the Newark Showground.

If you are interested, please get in touch and we can organise the logistics for getting Scottish pipe smokers represented at this event.

I will update as I get firmer details.

November meeting.

Apologies for the delay in posting, work has been pretty hectic recently.

November meeting was another quiet one; just John and myself. However, we had a nice sunny, relatively mild afternoon (at least until the sun went down).

I concentrated on my new Peterson's Kildare, with some St Bruno. John was smoking Mac Baren Navy Flake in his Parker billiard.

For the forthcoming December meeting, don't worry about the weather...we've got shelter and heating and tea and coffee (or something stronger) are available at the bar.

Help. Can you identify a mystery blend?

I've been asked by a reader of the blog (Jason, from Tasmania in Australia) for help identifying (and possibly sourcing) a blend called "Caledonia Medium".

It was the favourite blend of Jason's late Uncle for many years and he used to get it from Herbert Love in Queensferry Street (now closed unfortunately).

If anyone recognises the name and can suggest a possible replacement source, please let me know and I will let Jason know.

I'm guessing that if Caledonia Medium wasn't blended by Herbert Love themselves, it might have been a re-labelled bulk blend from one of the major suppliers. If this is the case, it might be available elsewhere under a different name.

Thanks in advance for any help.

UK Federation of Pipe Clubs.

We are now officially a member of the UK Federation of Pipe Clubs.

Brian Mills, the President, has been in touch and has suggested as a first step towards reviving the Federation (which had lapsed a bit since the smoking bans came in to force) a weekend event next summer, somewhere in central England.

As I get more information, I will pass it on.