Thursday 4 February 2010

Christmas Girl's Get-Away

The good thing about Paige living in Alva is that we now get to visit her there, and spend time in Stirling, and all the other places roundabouts that are so much easier to get to from central Scotland.

The bad part about Paige living in Alva, of course, is that it means she's not living in Aberdeen.  *sigh*

Anyway.  Liz and RitaB and I headed down in December for a wild and crazy girls Christmas weekend!  We went to see the panto on at Stirling Uni on Friday night, which was Sleeping Beauty.  Liz and I have been to pantos before, so knew what to expect.  I was a little concerned that P and RitaB wouldn't like it... they are quite an experiences.  But they loved it!  At least, they claimed to.  I don't have any photos, and I don't even really know how to explain it.  It's musical comedy theatre with a LOT of audience participation and ad libbing from the dame, who is, of course, in drag.  They are based on fairy tales or other folk tales (the other one I saw, in Cambridge a couple of years ago, was Aladdin.).  They are great for kids and families, but we weren't the only adults there without children.  It was hilarious, and a little sad, but of course had a happy ending.  Ah... a Christmas tradition I'm happy to add!

Other than the panto, we wandered around Stirling on Friday, and indulged in our first try of the Milk Shak eBar.  Oh dang.  I don't have photos of that, either, but it was heaven.  The city was all decked out, and we enjoyed it... what we could see, anyway.  We also were on a quest to find a certain board game... which was elusive, til the very last.  And we played it A LOT over the weekend.  It's better than the original!  You should try it.  =)   Oh, and Liz left us on Saturday, the day in which we pretty much stayed in the flat.  Except for the brief time the sun came out, and the three of us took a walk along the Hillfoots to Menstie and back. 

We went to church on Sunday at Stirling Methodist, and everything was all frosty.  Even the spiderwebs.  It was lovely.  From there, we went to Glasgow for the afternoon, because we could.  It cost less than seven pounds, and took just over half an hour.  Brilliant.  You can't get anywhere from Aberdeen for those.  I was going on a mission, that the girls didn't share with me.  We eventually met up at the Kelvingrove Museum, which was where I headed directly from the train station.  I saw an exhibit that I've been dying to see for a year, and just in time before it left in January.  I also heard the Salvation Army band playing in the open middle bit, and visited Jesus.  He's hard to photograph, though.  Silly lights.


Finally from there, we went back to Stirling and climbed up, up, up the slidey mountain to get to the castle.  We had tickets for the caroling.  It was lovely, with all the frost.  A little creepy, too, but I liked that.  The caroling wasn't really what I expected--it was a concert by some group.  Bah.  I expected, from it's name and it's advertising, that it would be an actual caroling eveing, with everyone joining in and singing songs and stuff.  So I was a bit disappointed.  The choir was fine;  it just wasn't what I wanted.  The Great Hall was very festive, though.

From there, RitaB and I caught the train home.  And that, as they say, was that.  

3 comments:

Barb said...

Um, am I missing something? What's up with the spider webs? Looks like a fabulous weekend - the game looks awesome!

Amie V said...

i thought i said... they were just all frosty and lovely. everything was, but they were easiest to photo. =)

Barb said...

So they're real spider webs? It looked to me like decorations left up from Halloween! :)