Flowers and Canons

It's been a weekend of 2 halves, both absolutely brilliant and full of getting to hang out and see friends.

Winding back a little, Friday was a trip over to the House of the Binns for the long awaited photoshoot of my eldest neice in her prom dress. I am not at liberty to share them here, but trust me when I say that she looked absolutely stunning.

The fact that one of her friends has turned one of the photos into a mock cover for Vogue is far more flattering to my photography skills than I care to admit!

Saturday was a rather last minute outing with my friends to Scone Palace and their Garden Fair. My Inverness friend came down for the day and we came to realise just how incredibly twee we have become in our old age! After a few hours admiring the competition gardens (Missy and I liked the one with cake best) and looking through the plant stalls (I was good and only adopted one peppermint plant), we found a nice shady area and chatted away. 

There was a few shady walks and also dash around the maze. Missy got us absolutely lost in the maze, which only added to the fun. 

And then it was time to get going. Once back in Edinburgh, I briefly saw my brother for a slice of cake for his birthday. We have adventures planned to celebrate which I will tell you about next week. 

Sunday was an absolute 180. From house and garden and calmly mooching about neatly mown lawns with peacocks to being back in Duncarron for thier Pirates event.

It was Missy, hubby, a good friend and myself who all went. Our friend had been lamenting the lack of Renfairs in the UK, so we told her this was probably the closest thing we could get. And it was an absolute success, we did the archery, the axe throwing and watched the displays. For lunch we hid in the shade of the pirate tavern and Missy got so much attention. We humans did too as we had also dressed up, but as always Missy went into tart mode and we all made fast friends with everyone we met.

The absolute highlight of the day was best dressed pirate. As with the Viking show, we decided it would be funny to enter Missy except.... 

She was the only entrant. The heat and lateness of the day had driven off most of the little pirates I had seen running about earlier. Fortunately, Jack Sparrow ran off and rounded up all the kids he could find and we had a competition. There were introductions and Missy got her time honoured laugh. Then the judges all huddled together to pick a winner. I did hear a "it's gotta be the dog" followed by a "ye cannae have the dog win! It's gotta be one of the bairns!" which gave me a good giggle.

We all clapped when the kid beside us won a little shield and sword and then Jack Sparrow stood upon a barrel and announced that Missy had won runner up. We were handed his autobiography (a dvd of one of the Pirates films) and a jar of dirt (tastefully put together). At that point, the lass running the kitchen ran over with a hotdog which was proudly presented to Missy. 

There was much laughter as it was immediately gobbled down! An excellent end to the day. 

And so, Missy will always remember the day that Captain Jack Sparrow gave her a hot dog! 

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!