Holly and Matt booked up Jiggered Ceilidh Band for their wedding having enjoyed us before (we’ve played for this Dumfries bunch a few times and they are a brilliant crowd who make our job very easy!). As usual, fiddler Susan “checked in” on Facebook to let everyone know we’d arrived at Mabie House Hotel. This was our first time at this venue but we’re back in 2013.

After setting up, we chatted to the videographer in front of the roaring fire. Lovely. And as guests arrived one said to us “when we heard Holly and Matt had a great ceilidh band lined up, we figured it’d be Jiggered!”. That should become a tagline for the band I think! Annoyed I didn’t think it up in 10 years of ceilidhing.

The evening went really well with guests spilling onto the floor for every dance. We did have a couple of “firsts”…we threw in a couple of new songs Holly had requested (Tim Hughes Dance Dance and Casting Crowns Praise You With The Dance) and we laughed as a couple of guys paired up in the Cumberland Basket, although the designated “lady” did well being hurled around!

And so…time to leave after a lovely evening. I set the Sat Nav to “home”. Leaving the hotel, it instructed me to take a right even though we’d come in the other direction. Fast forward five minutes….Susan and I are sitting at the bottom of a dirt track facing a fence which leads into a field. Hmmm. Time to try and turn. No room to do that. Then the car begins to sink in mud. I get out to try pushing while Susan drives (managing to plunge into mud that covers up to just below my knee). The car by now is only on three tyres- the fourth is dangling over the edge of an embankment leading down to a wee burn! I lift the car onto the other three wheels while Susan drives us out. We then spend the next 10 minutes reversing up this country road…the farmer comes out with a torch shouting “what are you doing down there?”. Thankfully he was offering his help (although when directing me in a three-point-turn he kept using nautical language: “steer your bow right”?!). When we got back on track, Susan posted her latest check-in on Facebook: In a ditch, in Dumfries with Chris Smith. Susan’s husband Alan phoned her within about 2 minutes of this (awwww…). Needless to say my wife Elaine was sound asleep and found out about our adventure this morning!!