| aughintober, northern ireland

The day started off in good enough fashion - with a text from our newly-updated 'MacNav' tellin us all that there was plenty of traffic on the way into Enniskillen, so to be sure to leave plenty of time - that upgrade was really worth it! Not only do we get free travel information - but new traffic congestion updates, all for the low low price of a pint of beer!

Anyone who's ever been to the Fermanah contest will know that you can only expect one of 2 things - lots of sun, or lots of rain, and yesterday the latter certinly won out - huddled in our capes in the band Gazebo's the band started to work - good start, very clean, a wee bit of the B's and D's, but nothing to worry about. Drummers too were in good spirits, with their fancy new blue shells to show off...the band was looking good and sounding good, looking forward to the prospect of revealing our new Medley to the world in style.

Unfortunately for our bandsmen, things didn't go quite to plan. A poor performance in the ring left us downtrodden, and we still had to play for the Open Grade! At that point, the last thing anyone wanted to do was pick up their instruments, but with the urge to 'man up' everyone, to their eternal credit did their best, and the band went in and played a second time (and a bit better).

So, a throughly character-building excercise in Co. Fermanagh for the boys and girls of Team APB, coming 2nd in both grades, and winning the Bass Prize in both as well. But we will get up, dust ourselves off, put in the necessary work and hopefully make a better go of it next time - as they say, FMM wasn't built in a day.

On a brigher note, young Willy Laffin managed to pull off yet another win in G4B with the folks from UpperCrossgare, and Ryan came fourth!

We'd also like to say Congratulations to the Howard, who won both our grades.