Perthshire Highland Games

Well, its been a busy few weeks! We finally got the sheds replaced (it only took us six years to get around to it!) so that was the entirety of last weekend and, just as the cuts and bruises from demolishing and then erecting two sheds had started to fade, the hubby and I got rid of the old sheds yesterday. I'm sure there was some kind of inanimate spite from those sheds, I am completely black and blue from getting them hacked into small pieces and then shipped off to the dump.

So today I went with the girls for a meet up in Perth. One of my friends moved to Inverness at the beginning of the year, and we've been trying to figure out a good meeting point that doesn't involve driving for 3 hours. Perth didn't work out as a perfect midway, so we may need to revise logistics, but that's a battle for another day! We had brunch at The Rose House cafe which was really nice (thier raspberry cake comes highly recommended!) before deciding the brave the dreery weather and head out to the Highland Show at Scone Palace, which was only 10 minutes away.

I've mentioned many times that I love highland shows - the heavy games, the dancing, the pipe bands and the freshly made doughnuts make for a fabulous day no matter the weather. This games was much larger than the Bathgate games that I've done before with foot and cycling races in addition to the usual contests. I got really lucky and finally managed to watch the dancers compete in the national dances (including the Hornpipe and Flora) which I tend to miss as they run at the same time as the heavy games. I adore the Hornpipe costume, the little sailor outfit is so distinctive that we could tell from the main field the dance, which was why we went over.

Surprisingly, the tug-of-war, which I haven't seen competed live, was largely underwhelming. I thought tere was going to be lots of shouting and pulling and instead I saw sixteen men (two teams of eight) basically anchor themselves to the ground and not move. It was 22 minutes before one team started to gain traction over the other and, I will confess, we enjoyed the band master competition (where they throw and twirl the batons) much more which was happening in the same field. Missy was fussed over during the event (she always gets lots of attention in her little pink raincoat) and we then went and got some doughnuts, purely to keep warm, honest.

The last event we watched was the caber tossing. It's always a crowd-pleaser and was totally packed with people clapping and cheering. Sadly, the ground was too wet to get a proper toss, and we only saw one proper turn before sneaking out. We were all cold and soaked through at that point and Missy had started to shiver, so it was a good time to go. Fortunately I'd packed her little dressing gown, so I had her all dried off and wrapped up in no time and she snoozed away for the drive home. Unfortunalty I had to contend with lashing rain (we exited just before the heavens opened) and then fog! What a change of weather its been in only a few weeks!

Still, despite the weather and hairy drive, a brilliant day!