Back from the Highlands

[spudtater]

Well, I've been in Nethy Bridge all weekend with the New Scotland Country Dance Society. An... interesting experience.   8^)

Thursday:

• Last minute mask shopping. Found one in 'Ahahahaha' near the Grassmarket.

Friday:

• Three lectures in JCMB, one in DHT, project meeting in JCMB again, then straight up to Appleton to catch the bus up north. A little bit of a hectic schedule.
• Forth bridge! Yay!
• Unneccessary amounts of singing.
• Fish supper.
• More singing.
• Arrival at hostel, ceilidh soon followed. Good fun, albeit tiring. Cheap alcohol too.

Saturday:

• Bagpipes at a quarter to eight.
• Breakfast. Deficit of bacon. Deficit of marmite. Deficit of waffles. Surplus of toast.   8^P
• Country dance workshop. Slow and stiff going, but learnt some surprisingly complex dances.
• Step dance workshop. Tripped over own feet within five minutes, gave up, went and played cards instead. <grapes taste="sour">It's a particularly pointless form of dance, anyway.</grapes>
• Lunch. Pie! (steak & kiddley), quiche, cheese, some rabbit food too.
• Washing up duty. Other people skived. Grrrr.
• Croquet cancelled due to rain. Darts instead. Oh well. More cards too. 'Spoons': fun.
• Dinner: chicken korma, rice, beany-type-thing, couscous. Beany-type-thing surprisingly tasty.
• Masked ball. Discovered that I had completely forgotten the surprisingly complex dances from the morning.
• Annoying 'party games' initiated by loathsome 'person'. Sunk into bad mood.
• More dancing; bad mood lifted again.
• Retreated to bar. More party games, so went to bed.

Sunday

• Bagpipes some time in the morning. Uncivilised.
• Heard roommates describing upcoming highland dance workshop. Calculated probability of being able to 'hop around' given current inability to open eyelids: Very Low.
• Back to sleep.
• Woke up again in time for breakfast, a.k.a. lunch. Soup, and leftover quiche and pies.
• Bus to Aberdour distillery. Admired the scenery, replete with heather.
• Aberdour distillery tour. "Smallest distillery in Scotland": something to be proud of? Not convinced. Run by Campbells. Don't trust them. A tasty dram, though, and highly educational tour. Resisted the gift shop.
• Bus again. Slept.
• Back in Edinburgh. Went to Doctor's to drink more booze deconstruct the weekend.

Anyway, I'm glad I went, though I'm equally happy to see a nice comfy bed in a room that I don't have to share with five other people. Missed the usual bunch of goths & freaks (you know who you are) on Saturday night. Oh, and my sympathies to nickys, who I hear was suffering from aggravated injustices while I was faffing around in the highlands without a care. I hate being out of touch.   8^(

See you all soon!

Comments

[nocturnal-life1.livejournal.com]

i know of nethy-bridge! my great aunt winnie lives there!!! what fun i had there during school holidays:D

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the weather was so poor that I didn't actually see much of Nethy Bridge itself!
Still, from what little I saw it looks like a nice place.   8^)

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Bagpipes are the best reveille possible! Especially when the piper walks past the foot of your bed. I'm fairly sure it was 6:30 ours went off at when I was training - could have been six. Then we had an hour's PT before breakfast. There was bacon, however, though mercifully not Marmite which is industrial effluent mislabelled as fit for human consumption.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

industrial effluent mislabelled as fit for human consumption.
I love that. I could never understand how my Dad could love Marmite so much. Eugh.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Marmite: you either love it or you love to hate it.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

What training would this be?

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

British Army. Edinburgh & Heriot Watt Universities Officer Training Corps. Basic training at Redford barracks. Very character building, but damned hard.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

I love NethyBridge. I've been there a few times. Once was for school camp (when I was 16), the second time was a cycling trip a couple of years ago. I love cycling trips. Must organise one soon.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Bagpipes at dawn? I would've strangled the piper in my sleep. I could do it you know. If I can climb out of bed, get the ladder out from behind my bedroom door, set it up, climb it, open the top cupboard door to turn off the alarm clock inside, climb back down the ladder and back into bed and all whilst still being asleep then strangling someone in my sleep should be a piece of cake. I swear I did that in my sleep. I had no recollection of it. I woke up, looked at the clock on the wall and wondered why my alarm hadn't gone off an hour before. Got out of bed and walked into the ladder. Ouch.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

There was a long pause in the middle of the tune on the first morning, which I learnt later was due to the piper being attacked. Understandable, really.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> and my sympathies to nickys, who I hear was suffering from aggravated injustices

Thanks.