Patrick, windbag - have you been in lurking mode for 2 years?
I’ll bet a pound to a pinch that Patrick reaches a thousand posts before I do. 
Welcome Windbag. Ummmm, does your screen name imply that you play the pipes?
Indeed he does. A lovely set of John Addison Uillean Pipes, a set of ‘half lungs’, and Highland Great Pipes. He also plays melodeon, whistle (a damn sight better than me), fiddle (when he fancies playing ‘Ashokan Farewell’), and harmonica. Sings a bit too.
Most excellent! I also fancy playing the Ashokan Farewell on fiddle. Quite the well rounded musician! 
Well, (as Henry Kipper used to say) here we all are then! Thanks for all the welcoming messages- the fire is lit, the doglets are all sleepy and hairy, and the Web suddenly seems a friendlier place. Christmas at JB’s is not all you might think. Big Zambezi himself wears a thong and a pith helmet with highly polished riding boots, and nothing else. His lovely Consort, Anathema, hands him a series of whistles (he has Whistle Acquisition Disorder) while manic grinning Madam Adam plays the Wallis and Gromit theme over and over again. By the time it comes to flambe the pudding with paraffin (that’s kero or aviation fuel to you over the Pond) you need the loo (John Washbasin) so bad you can literally taste it. Stay home, you reverse Coffin Ship Emigrants, and play your lovely tubes.
Sorry Big Z, it needed saying. 
Maybe they’d all be better off coming directly to you for new year then? 
I’ve never heard ‘Pleasant and Delightful’ sung by more than a thousand people before. 
This is turning into a bipartite conversation, like when we sit down to play the Lark and everyone else shuts up/leaves/gets drunk and passes out.
I am off to start a new topic, with the theory about Carolan’s deaf brother who painted harps. Or something.
Cheers
:roll: