Bathgate Highland Games

Missy observing the pipers

I always laugh at myself about these things. I dislike stereotypes and I've always felt that the Scottish have had a great disservice done to them by Hollywood. No, we're not all ginger and wear kilts all the time. I've never even tasted buckfast (or buckie as its actually called around here), let alone spending all hours drinking it and don't get me started on deep fried mars bars...

And that's the smaller, lighter caber...

However, give a man a caber and I'm right there getting all worked up if the judge calls it a ten-to-twelve when clearly its five-to. I adore everything about the games - the pipers, the dancers, the heavy games and the whole avenue of burger and chip vans. The best part is that they are almost always dog friendly and its a great place to bump into other dog owners and discuss they best part of your fur-baby amongst lots of very loud music.

This year I went with a friend who used to compete with the Highland Dancing. I've been learning highland for a few years now and it was really good to to be told about the fine details of competitive dancing and to point out dancers we thought were doing really well. We both had dance-envy by the end of the day though!

An unfortunate miss

As a result of her competitive dancing, my friend had also never seen the heavy games. The commentator was very tongue-in-cheek about the athletes and did a good job of explaining what was happening in each game. Whilst the caber tossing is the big draw, I do love the aptly-named 'weight over a bar' event (pictured above). For me, the thought of carrying a 4-stone weight is horrific, let alone trying to toss it 15 feet in the air over a bar!

Missy made lots of doggy friends and we all had a nice time out in the fresh air. The weather held for us but it wasn't so sunny that we burned or overheated. The mood of the event was really good and everyone seemed to be having a genuinely nice time.

All in all a good day.