Q: What's the difference between bagpipes and an onion?
A: No one cries when you cut up a bagpipe

I apologise to any bagpipe lovers or players here. I'm sure you've heard it all before. It's a misunderstood instrument, we can all agree. Some of us just can't wrap our heathen heads around such a caterwauling. It's a rare person indeed that puts a playlist together on Spotify with bagpipe tunes. If you've done this, please let me know. I'll be impressed, but I can't say I'd listen to it.

However, as the sound of bagpipes drifted across the bay whilst I was surfing last week...

WAIT WHAT!

Who the hell was standing on the water's edge playing BAGPIPES? Sure, hippies playing dijeridoo or hang drums, at a stretch, or someone with a UE boom being annoying with some doof - wait, no, still not right - when I'm out surfing all I hear is waves, birds, and my heartbeat - and the music in my head, which annoyingly this week is 'Murder on the Dancefloor', after watching Saltburn. Now whenever I see my husband naked, I hear that song...dammit! If ya know, ya know...

But that's enough of my naked husband - let's get back to the bagpipes. We all looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Some of us really wanted to be annoyed. Like, who the flying fish wants to listen to bagpipes on a peaceful Wednesday afternoon? What right did this guy have to disturb our peace?

Yet there was something beautiful about it, we had to admit. It wasn't the misty Scottish highlands, but it was a broody old day - big purple storm clouds, seagulls drifting, big stingrays flying underboard, rainstorms threatening. Perhaps this was what they called 'atmospheric', right? After a while, we all put aside our 'shut up that godawful sound' and thought there was something quite magic and special about the moment.

It certainly raised questions about first reactions and bias. Most of us don't understand bagpipes. Our first reaction is to reject, to tease, to make fun of. But given a little open mindedness and openness that can come from an easy and gentle time in the water, we can allow ourselves to drift toward something like appreciation. Sure, we won't be going how and listening to Scotland the Brave, but we'll be saving this little unusual moment in our minds. It will be filed under our personal memory banks as 'Strangely Wonderful Things That Have Happened at the Beach' or 'That Time I was Surfing And...'

Cool bagpipes.