Dining Area with Books & Cat

Some people like to look at cabinets of dishware while eating. And what could be more interesting than staring at an armoire full of plates, at the same moment that you are actually eating off of one! A truly integrated, multi-sensory experience if ever there was. Though as a rule, I find books and cats more satisfying.

Usually we eat out of large plastic bowls while sitting in the salon. If only we had an armoire maybe we'd feel inspired to sit in the dining cul de sac.

Speaking of sacs, this is also one of the very few spots in all Israel where lessons on the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe (Khemet Khalilim Skotit) take place.

Highland Bagpipes

This is a pencil drawing of my old Wm Sinclair & Son Highland bagpipes, done by my wife. The backdrop is Royal Stuart tartan.

I waited four years for this fine, hand-made set after ordering them in person from Mr William Sinclair in his workshop in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr Sinclair is the second generation to make quality Highland pipes, after his father William, who began in the 1930s. His son Alistair, the third generation, is currently carrying on the family business. I am not certain if his son Ewan is in the business. That would make four generations of maintaining quality in what is now quite a competitive market.

You would think that my set would be the only one in Israel. However, there is another set of Sinclair pipes, made by William Sinclair senior back in the 1930s, owned by a very fine sabra piper of my good acquaintance. A top Jewish player who is a friend of ours, and who visits Israel often also plays old Sinclair pipes, which used to belong to a career pipe-major in the Scots Guards Regiment (a Scottish contribution to the British Army). We all three came by our Sinclair pipes quite independently of each other.

An antique olivewood walking stick

I was returning from a long walk outside Karmiel maybe 10 or 15 years ago. At the edges of the industrial park was some waste land, formerly part of an olive orchard. The trees were mostly dead, or diseased, as the land was not being worked at all. A considerable amount of old cuttings were laying about, half covered in damp, rotting leaves and soil. I thought I saw a useable length of wood, so I tugged at it and pulled it out of the half-buried pile within which it lay. I reduced it to a manageable two meters or so with my Swiss Army knife saw. And this is what eventually emerged from the gray, leaf-stained wood with trimming and polishing.

The stick is resting on the sheet music for the tune "Sir James MacDonald of the Isles," a very old Scottish Highland bagpipe tune, of the type called piobaireachd. Beautiful, well-aged things go well together. Too bad that we don't understand this for ideas as well.