My wife and I are going on a tour of Ireland in August and to say I’m looking forward to it is a major understatement. I’ve wanted to do this for years. Along the way, I’ll be hand delivering three whistles which should be a great experience. I hope to find some pub sessions I can join too.
So with the trip evidently in mind, last night I dreamed I was in a pub, right next to Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains. He’s always been a favorite of mine, and hearing the Chieftains on SNL is what spurred me to take up the whistle.
Naturally, I wanted to have him try one of my whistles and hear how it sounded in the hands of one of the best. I searched frantically through my bag of instruments and other stuff and couldn’t find a single whistle!
Somehow the dream shifted, and Tony Hinnigan (who I have met and shared a couple of ales with) was there. I realized that I had a whistle that he had asked me for (in addition to the two he already has 
). Again, I frantically looked through my bag and found the whistle but was horrified to see that the fittings and plug of the whistle had come apart in transit!
I then woke myself up in self defense…
Don’t you just love worst case scenario dreams ? Now I’m sure you’ll check the location of those whistles 1000 times before departure ! Have a thoroughly enjoyable trip ! 
That part is similar to a recurring dream I have, that I open up a case to one of my instruments and discover that the instrument is damaged in some way, the wood all cracked or eaten by some bugs etc.
At least we can wake up!
Your nightmare, my reality. Finally decided to give the uilleann pipes a go and bought a practice set off a guy on Gumtree. This is how the chanter arrived. Currently tearing what is left of my hair out.
WARNING FURTHER VIEWING CONTAINS IMAGES THAT MAY UPSET THE VIEWER
URL=http://s1369.photobucket.com/user/irishmuse1/media/DSC_0004_zpsc14900b0.jpg.html]
[/URL]
But the good news is that reed looks to be intact 
Stuff like that is always a miserable experience, I had a whistle returned from Russia that got wrecked by the Customs people not that long ago… Between spraying it down with some kind of solvent slop and twisting it every which way but loose I was definitely chewing nails when it arrived back.