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East Tour Diary Day 9

At 7.01am morning class Dougie confirmed the bus will leave at 8am and that Dalmore and Jura who will be playing at Westville Curling Club will be dropped off first whilst Fettercairn and Tamnavulin will continue on to Pictou where all teams will meet up for lunch. We dropped off Dalmore and Jura who were greeted by piper Angus and a broom arch. The teams were piped onto the ice and gave a lusty rendition of Flower of Scotland. It was an interesting ice hall with pillars up the middle. Jura recorded a good 8 shot win while Dalmore lost a close game by 2 shots resulting in plus 6 shots overall. Meanwhile the other teams were piped on to the ice at Pictou Curling Club , sang Flower of Scotland and welcomed by the President . The 3 sheet ice hall was very cold and had tricky ice. Tamnavulin were playing against four good skips and with a combination of their good and our not so good play resulted in a 13 shot defeat. Fettercairn recorded a 2 shot win, which combined with the Westville scores resulted in minus 3 shots. Everyone joined up at Pictou for a soup, sandwich and cakes lunch and John Sinclair gave a very good vote of thanks. Afterwards we visited the nearby part restored ship Hector and Exhibition Centre which was very interesting although the top half of the boat was covered in tarpaulins. The Hector landed in Pictou in 1773 having set sail from Loch Broom.

We then moved on to Bluenose Curling Club at New Glasgow where were welcomed by President Jim de Wolf, piper Angus and a broom arch. We were then piped onto the ice where we sang Flower of Scotland. Although Jura had a bye, skip Jim Barr was drafted in to skip Tamnavulin. Unfortunately Jim was not able to reproduce his brilliant form of the morning and the rink lost by 5 shots, with 1 shot losses by Dalmore and Fettercairn. Bruichladdich recorded an excellent 7 shot win resulting an overall peeled match. The ladies of Bluenose then served up an excellent three course meal, which was followed by speeches from the top table including organiser Jim Wise, Peter Dunn (Minister of communities culture tourism and Heritage) who presented Dougie with 6 backpacks and bum bags and he was followed by Nancy Dicks the Mayor of New Glasgow.. Dougie then thanked Peter advising that we would auction off the items in aid of the charity our tour is supporting.Don Frame then gave a comprehensive vote of thanks, especially mentioning our excellent courier Jim Kavanagh. We then provided entertainment in the form of our six man sketch, tour song and I have a dream, after which we repaired to the bar where several drinks were consumed whilst listening to a member singing and playing guitar. We bade our farewells and bussed it to our hotel in Pictou arriving at 10pm.