Haggis and Highlands
I really only covered Norway and Greece!? God I'm a slack blogger. So, here is Scotland, in two parts!
I had been looking forward to heading to Edinburgh for some time, especially as I was going to be there during the Fringe Festival. I was thinking the other day why I had booked the specific time in Edinburgh that I had, obviously I had a end point I that I had a date to meet Wonderboyf in Finland. I must have just thought it was a good idea to go from the 1st of August.
To be honest, apart from wanting to go to the Fringe in general, my main impetus was to go and see Lady Sings It Better. They're friends of mine and it was a monumental effort for them to get the show there, so if I can support them in donating to their cause to get them there, I can sure as hell go and cheer them on! I have to say I'm both proud and awe of them and their business venture/ risk to take the show to Edinburgh. But, I'm jumping ahead of myself!
I caught with with my old housemate G who now lives in Whitchurch, England, not too far from the wonderful J&N. I went and spent a night catching up with G talking shit, drinking and catching up on the couple of years it's been since we last saw each other. Sometimes nothing changes :) oh, and we watched an episode of The Sire, I'll never get that time back.
So after a night and full day hanging with G, I caught the gain to London and then the overnight train to Edinburgh. In hindsight, I could have coped with the much cheaper bus, but, well, I know that now! I arrived at 7am and made my way to Haggis Adventures where I was hopping on an 8.30am tour of the Highlands for 3 days. I'm wary of organized tours as, well I hate tourists, and tourists go on organized tours. Happily, the 3 day Skye High tour was set to change my opinions. Our tour guide was an elfin like lass named Fi who was an absolute pocket rocket and loads of fun.
Over 3 days and 2 nights we drove from Edinburgh through William Wallace country stopping at all the useful places hearing all the relevant stories and ended up on the Isle of Skye. I had gravitated towards 3 other gals my age who were all traveling alone and conveniently, we were all placed in a hostel room together. One of the last stories we were told before arriving on the Isle or Skye, was that of Saucy Mary. Mary was a Viking woman, and obviously at the time there was no bridge to the Isle. Sailors used the channel as a regular passage way, and Mary, being the resourceful Viking lass she was saw a way to make a quick buck, or whatever currency the Vikings used.... I should probably know that. Anyway, Mary gathered together a number of boats, chained the together across the stretch of water and created her own tollway for sailors. To sail through the passage, the sailors now had to pay Mary a sum she saw fit. Surprisingly they did pay her, probably because going around was just too long. Now, the sea legends of the time said that a woman's bare breast were good luck and would calm the open water or sea (think of all those busty women on the bow's of ships eh?) so, Mary would receive her toll, open her make shift boat gate and then as the sailor sailed through, flash the sea, and of course the sailor, her bare breasts, and that's how she got the name Saucy Mary. Fi was disappointed that no one on the bus chose to flash the water as we crossed over the bridge to the Isle of Skye.
We stayed at Saucy Mary's hostel that night, and the four of us girls took a reprieve from the rest of the group and climbed up the the ruins of a castle not too far from the hostel. There wasn't much left of the ruins but the looked pretty cool and the view of the getting-close-to-setting sun was great, it's Scotland and it wasn't raining! We talked about the day and took silly pictures in front of the castle remains, using the sun to cast shadows including YMCA, we're nothing if not predictable. And the we had the silly idea... We decided we would be the Saucy Mary's and had a fortunate(?) passer by take a photo of us, flashing the open water that lay in front of the ruins. This had started a theme. The next morning, we showed Fi the photo of us flashing and she was thrilled. For the rest of the tour, wherever we could, with a stretch of open water, we as a group of four, would flash the sea and catch a photo of it. Oh the silliness!
Fi had a retinue of faerie stories that accompanied many of our stops, it added a fun element to the entire trip and saw us run down hills beside waterfalls with mouthfuls of water and the like. Our second night was at Morag's hostel by the Loch Ness. Another Haggis Adventures tour us was also staying the night and there was to be a trivia night for everyone to challenge the rival bus in. We four were of course the Saucy Mary's. There must have been 8 teams in all, 4 for the other tour, 3 from ours and a rogue team of four cyclists who were staying the night while on a fundraising cycle across Scotland and some of England. They'd cycled 80 miles that day. The quiz had a number of other challenges on top of the usual questions. One was the tower of strength where one member from each team had to hold a full pint of water above their heads until they were the last one standing, the winner of which usually won the whole quiz.
During one of the other challenges in which I was competing, Leah, one of my team of Saucy Mary's managed to hint to the Quiz master about my burlesque performing. He asked me whether I was a dancer and I said, not quite. I explained to him what burlesque was and I think he wasn't sure if I was serious. He offered me free drinks for my team and extra bonus points if I performed my act. It turns out I had all my costume with me as I was anticipating performing at the Fringe. So I accepted his challenge and went upstairs to change. I hadn't even had that much to drink, it just seemed like and amusing, and ego boosting idea, not to mention the free drinks and bonus points. Shortly after, I returned in my Mae costume, and Mae de la Rue took to the floor, or more specifically, to a bar table. Yes, I stood on a bar table and stripped, doing my If It Hadn't Been for Love act that I debuted at The Peel. Amusingly the number of people in the bar when I returned, ready to perform had doubled. The number of eyes popping out of heads was very entertaining and my performance was met with a huge response of rousing cheers and claps etc. It was very silly to do, but fun. Leah then managed to win the Tower of Strength challenge after it came down to the last 3 standing who then raced to skull their pint of water through a straw. So it was looking pretty good for the Saucy Mary's to win trivia.
The judges deliberated. They came back saying it was a draw between us and the Cyclists. We frowned and claimed rigged. In the end we had a dance off between me and one of the cyclists. Using a cheers-o-meter approach, the cyclists won in spite of his average dancing. We took the loss gracefully knowing we should have won, but not really caring, we had our free drinks after all, it was more about pride. We later we had one of the girls from the other tour come and tell us how good she thought I was and that we should have won, and then revealed that the tour guide from the other bus had told the group that afternoon that they were not, under any circumstances, allowed to let our tour win the trivia, hence the other tour group all cheering for the cyclists to win the dance off. So, it looks like Switzerland won. Shocking, yet amusing, we had a few more drinks and went to bed safe in the knowledge that the Saucy Mary's really did rock.
There were a few sore heads the next day and some serious retelling of the night prior's escapades on the bus as half of our group hadn't even come to the trivia night. We visited the Loch and a few other spots for photos before eventually heading back to Edinburgh. I had tried Haggis and Iron Bru, the Scottish orange soft drink much like creaming soda which actually outsells Coke! I had seen a Hairy Cow which is a highlands breed, and a lot of stunning scenery with pretty spectacular weather the whole time. Once back in Edinburgh, Emily (one of the Saucy's) and I made our way to our hostel and then I took the girls to see Lady Sings It Better as it was their first preview night for the Fringe. Some of the others from the tour came to see the show too and everyone enjoyed it. Afterwards I had a meeting with a theatre company who needed a Stage Manager for their Fringe show and a friend had put me in touch.
Once I'd finished, I met the Saucy Mary's for one last drink a Sandy Bells', a folk music pub in the heart of Edinburgh. It was a fitting way to end the adventure, and was just the start of the next adventure, the Edinburgh Fringe.
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