The Famous Alva Highland Games!

While I was in Alva, they held the 153rd (I think) Famous Alva Highland Games.  So of course I went.

It rained.  All day.  And it was cooooold.  I was frozen through and quite damp by the time I left to get fish 'n chips to watch the World Cup semi-finals (Uruguay was playing, and my World Cup crush plays for them).  The rain meant that the crowds were small, and that the Highland Dancing and piping got moved indoors somewhere... I never heard where, though.  I watched all the heavy events, which were interesting considering how wet everything was.  Only one guy even got the caber to flip over, which was disappointing.  I think the contestants were all annoyed with the rain, too.  It can't be very nice to be throwing deadly things around without a good grip.

I still enjoyed watching them, and there were a few I remembered from last year's events.  I also watched all the footraces, the hillrace, and the cycle races.  The hillrace was crazy... they ran all the way up to the top of the hillfoot behind us and back down-- the fastest one in just over 20 minutes!  That would be an all day event for me, and they were running it.  Mad.

I took some photos, of course.  They are here. 

The videos, in case you didn't notice, are in no real order.  I just stuck 'em in places.  =)

Celebrities Have All the Fun...

Sport relief.  Water skiing the English Channel.  Biking the length of Britain non stop.  Biking from Rome to Edinburgh for six nations.  Let's dance.  Kayaking the Amazon, the first woman ever. Fantastic sketches for fundraisers.  And Becks.  Oh, Lord, Becks.  Dumb as a rock, perhaps.  Looks of a god, oh yes.  Heart of gold?  Completely.  Who knew?

It's a little long, but it's totally worth it.  At least watch long enough to see David Beckham.  I'm pretty sure you won't regret it. 

I have loads more videos from the Sport Relief show... but I'll refrain.  You can find them on YouTube through the BBC channel, if you want.  They are quite funny, even if you don't live here.  =D

Laughter: The Best Medicine

I know, you may be sick of my video posts.  But I will not apologise for them.  They make me laugh, and that is a very, very good thing.  So I share them.  And if they don't make you laugh, then I don't know what's wrong with you.  Kidding.  Sort of.  ;) 

These I came across at my first quiz night, thanks to Jay.  There were ten in total;  I've only found two of the right ones so far.  But they were two of the best.  Here they are. 

This one made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe.  Jay was both amused and concerned, and was glad we had trained emergency aid people around.  I still laugh when it comes to mind.  Better than the real film, in my opinion! 

This one is classic.  Seriously.  We only got the cut version in the quiz, for reasons that will become obvious once you see the end.  However, after the quiz we got to see the whole thing, and it was brilliant.  Truly genius.  It honestly doesn't get more classic than this. 


For all you Facebookers who only read these when they import... you'll be truly missing out.  I would apologise, but if you really loved me, you'd read my actual blog.  Kidding.  Sort of.  =D

Funny Men

I'm not usually a huge fan of Johnathan Ross, but I happened to find his guests last night quite entertaining. 






I just had to share.  They cracked me up. 

Pancake Day

Mardi Gras?  What's that?  Around these parts, it's Pancake Day.  Why?  Well, I asked Wikipedia, and she told me this:

"Pancakes and doughnuts are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foodstuffs such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. The liturgical fasting emphasized eating plainer food and refraining from food that would give pleasure: In many cultures, this means no meat, dairy, or eggs."


I invited Aleithia and RitaBekah over for a pancake supper.  I have some Krusteaz mix, and we made three kinds:  banana (with raspberry jam on top), chocolate chip (with powdered sugar), and plain (with golden syrup).  They were so yummy.  I hadn't made them for a while, but I'm not sure why when I enjoy them so much.  And it was fun, hanging out and chatting with the girlies who were in town.  I missed Liz and Paige, but oh well.  That's life, isn't it?  And, of course, silly me-- I forgot to take a single picture.  Again, that's life.

Six Nations

I love this time of year.  Whether it's on tellly...

Or, even better, in person at Murrayfield with Paige...

That's Chris Patterson about to kick for goal up there.  All our nine points came from him.  I swear, he never misses.  We did lose to the French, mostly through silly mistakes and throwaways, but it was still so much fun to be there, live and in person.  It was a very last-minute decision to go, but we still got good seats and had a blast.  I sang the Scottish anthem in the midst of a standfull of French fans (yikes!) and cheered my wee heart out.  I can't wait to go again some time.  Brilliant

The next weekend, I watched on tv while we were beating Wales... and then it all went wrong.  It was a heartbreaking lose, and three of our men went down with some serious injuries.  One of them had to have surgery to fuse bones in his neck... luckily, he is moving his arms and legs now.  They will all three be out for the rest of the Six Nations Championships, and in at least the case of one, the whole season.  You can read about it here, if you're interested.  So the last weekend of the month, when we pick back up, who knows what will happen?  But overall, we've been playing so much better this year.  And even if we weren't, I'd still be cheering. 

I. Love. This. Game. 

If you are interested, you can go here for some fun stuff about this year's support campaign:  We Are Scotland.  It's really good stuff, if I do say so myself. 


Nevermind that it's for the autumn test matches;  it's still good for now.  =D

Snow and Darkness

It snowed in December.  A lot.  It was great!  I loved it.  And I got some photos of it around campus, and even in the Bridge of Don.  Because we had a Darkness Party at Liz's--me and Aleithia and RitaB and Liz, of course.  To celebrate the shortest day. Because what reason is there to complain about the dark?  It was a good party.  As they always are when those girls are involved.  And the snow... and the bus came... and it was great!  The snow pictures weren't taken all on one day, but during the same extended snowfall.  

Oh, the Burning!

I went down to the beach again this year for the city's Bonfire Night festivities.  Fifth of November, remember (remember)?  Anyway.  Last year I went with Paige, but since she'd recently defected to Alva, and because I could talk her into it, I went with Liz.  We took our travel mugs of hot cocoa and headed down.  There were some crazy people walking on coals for charity.  We didn't see it, which I'm actually quite glad about.  It was quite a crowd, and the music was blaring from the local radio station's deejay.  We had to laugh, though, about how Aberdonians express their excitement.  The deejay says, are you ready for some fireworks!  The crowd says, yeah, okay.  The deejay says, I can't hear you--I said, are you ready for some fireworks!  The crowd says, sure, whatever.  The deejay gives up. 

The show itself was nice, but nothing compared to last year.  The budget crunch hit Aberdeen's city council well before it hit anyone else, so I was just surprised they were still having anything.  They cancelled the Hogmanay party because of the budget.  Jerks.  I was looking forward to going again!  Anyway.  The fireworks were cool, and the Aberdoians around us showed their appreciation--- oh.  Nice.  See that one?  Hm.  It was awesome.  They just don't get very worked up or very vocal.  But Liz and I enjoyed ourselves.  Here's to you, Guy Fawkes!

File Under: Things You Never Thought Would Happen

Aberdeen finally opened Union Square Mall!  Which was originally supposed to be Millennium Mall, opened nearly a decade ago.  Better late than never, right?

It really is a great mall.  I love it!  They have a cinema (the second of my beloved Cineworld) with ten screens.  They have loads of restaurants.  They have three coffee shops.  They have clothes and accessories and gifts and all kinds of stuff!  It actually feels like a mall back home... which I say is good.  It means I can go to see a few films in a day, and have places to go in between to drink or shop or study, without having to go outside in the rain and wind and cold!  Hurrah!

They had a big opening weekend party, and I went down on that very first Thursday night.  I took some photos, and some video-- they had a stage set up for local groups to perfom, and lucky me, the Red Hot Chili Pipers were there!  It was too cool, really.  So the next time you need to do some shopping, come to Aberdeen!  The train station is on one side, and the bus station on the other... you don't even have to go outdoors!  Pretty awesome.

The view along the harbour: 

Looking up Guild Street towards the train station:

The new bus station:

The mall entrance is just around the building to the left;  the new train station facade is straight ahead:

The entrance along Guild Street:

The main mall entrance:

Costa to the right, in the midst of the big open entryway, shops all 'round...

The crowds enjoying the show in the main courtyard area.  I love how they left the train station facade up.  It looks nice.  And finally, some video of the evening's entertainment.  I love these guys!

Tartan Day in Aberdeen

Back to catching up on my adventures last year...
I may have mentioned that 2009 was the year of Homecoming for Scotland.  It was the 250th anniversary of Robbie Burns' birth, and seemed like a good time to promote some tourism.  I was just glad that it meant I got to do lots of Scottish things for once.

In early August, we had Tartan Day in Aberdeen.  People wore their tartans (if they had them), and there were pipe bands and performances (not always Scottish, as the International Youth Festival was going on, as well, with loads of performances as a part of it) and street fair stalls and big-deal-events.  I had completely forgotten about it, because Aberdeen does such a great job of advertising (yeah, right), and just happened upon it as I was wandering home from church (and yes, it was very lucky that I had actually decided to go to church that day).

I first heard a pipe band on Belmont Street...

As I was already on Belmont Street, I decided to wander through all the stalls of Scottish crafts and foods and goodies.  At one of them, they were having a whisky tasting to set a Guinness World Record for the most people in a single one-day tasting.  Of course, I selflessly decided I must help them reach their goal... and I forgot to take a photo!  It was a fairly local whisky, but I can't remember which now.  No, I didn't drink that much.  I'm just forgetful.  But the street was all decked out, as well, and I did take photos of all that.

From there I wandered down into Union Terrace Gardens, where there were other things going on, like showing off medieval fighting skills and stuff.  But nothing much was happening while I was there. 

I could see big crowds up at the top, in front of the theatre and the library and the big wallace statue... and where there are big crowds, there must be something going on.  So up I went.  And couldn't really see anything.  There was a pipe band I could hear, but it sure didn't seem like a big enough deal for all these people to be crowded around.

 And then, they crowds parted enough for me to get a peek through and work my way to the front... and I couldn't hear a bloomin' thing.  The sound system wasn't working.  I think they were doing a re-enactment of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, but I'm not certain.  There were flags and people dressed up in period costumes and a huge crowd of dignitaries sitting in chairs to watch it all.

 Since I couldn't hear anything, I started scanning the crowd.  Just looking around.  And then... I saw a profile.  I knew that profile.  But it couldn't be... could it?

 Leaning forward... there in black... no way.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I kept taking zoomed in photos, to try and convince myself if it was or wasn't, and then...

 Oh my word.  That bald head could only belong to one person... which means... it was him!  And there were two of them!  Seriously, it's bad when the highlight of my day is seeing two of the actors from my Scottish soap in my city.  But even better than that?  I was bold.  Daring.  Exceedingly polite...

 and I got my photo taken with River City baddie 'Lenny Murdoch'.  He was really nice!  It was a little disconcerting.  ;)  I was in heaven.  It was brilliant.  I couldn't believe my luck!!  And also...

 my picture with River City working man 'Jimmy Mullen'.  Also very friendly.  I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.  And I texted Kenny immediately to brag.  He was quite jealous.  As he ought to be, of course.  =D 

Then I got McDonalds and went to eat on a bench in Castlegate.  One of the International Youth performing groups was doing flag work, so I sat and watched.

Next up was a dance troupe, and I mostly had to smile at their shoes.  The didn't quite go with their flowy outfits... but then again, they were dancing on uneven cobbles.  I didn't blame them one bit.

And then I went home.  Still smiling.  And everytime I look at the picture of me with 'Lenny', I smile all over again.  That was a blast.