Ok going to keep this short - Last weekend I went to Stirling and Super Tourist I was you name it in Stirling and I saw it!! It's got an amazing palace with huge significance - whoever rules Stirling rules Scotland the saying goes
any way a full write up and photos will follow in a few days when I have a little more time.
Tuesday 25 July 2006
Sunday 16 July 2006
Down Tunnels and Up Towers
*note I had really cool pictures to go with this post but blogger wouldn't load them*
Sunday dawned bright and sunny – well I’m assuming it did as I most certainly wasn’t up at dawn.
With a clear sunny sky – I headed off South on the half hour mildly scenic drive to St Andrews. Parking in St Andrews is a bit of nightmare but thankfully as it was Sunday parking restrictions didn’t apply – there are actually park and ride centres just out side the city centre – but didn’t learn about those until my day was over – well I know for next time.
I had intended to start my visit to St Andrews with one of “100 things to do in Scotland before you die” by having a custard slice from Fisher and Donaldson bakery however it was closed – but gives me an excuse to visit St Andrews again ;)
Decided to keep things simple by picking 2 attractions to see and no, one of them was not the golf course. I choose the Castle & the Cathedral. Both are ruins with a long and somewhat bloody history.
Both the Castle & the Cathedral both had an actor doing little character monologues giving a little of the history of the places.
My first port of call was the castle where I purchased my joint entry ticket to both ruins. And in for a penny in for a pound I also shelled out £2.95 each for booklets for self guided tour of each ruin – not entirely convinced that they were worth the money – but they did get me neatly around both ruins
I was advised that both the Castle & the Cathedral both had an actor doing little character monologues giving a little of the history of the places with the Cathedrals next performance in half an hour – so I headed to the Cathedral.
The Cathedral like so many things in this country isn’t just a historical tourist attraction it’s a living part of the community. People are still interned in this cemetery and as such the grounds are open to all and in addition all the tourists there were many merry picnic groups in the grounds.
Here your admittance gets you access to 2 displays of stone carvings and to the St Rules Tower which is one of the most complete structures at the Cathedral and with your token the non claustrophobic and unafeared of heights can take a steep climb up some very circular stairs and you are presented with a rather breath taking view of St Andrews.
Seeing these tombs pic it becomes clear why incense was/is such a feature of Catholic church services – these tombs were under the floor that had to get stinky!
It was quite fascinating seeing the different styles of headstones through the centuries – the older ones featured skulls and cross bones, and used the words, corpse and body no beating around the bush here. It was also quite common not to just give the date of death and age but no birthdate. And others listed not a burial but a true memorial listing the location of a person’s internment else where in the world.
Following the Actors little presentation which while somewhat informative was pretty average to be honest – I wandered a little more around the cathedral before heading back to the castle for the 2pm performance there. It was the same actor at the Castle as at the Cathedral and once again it was an adequate performance – following the performance I finished my self guided tour of the castle including the underground tunnels.
The Castle was sieged at one point in time with the siegers trying to bring the walls down by tunnelling under the walls the siegers were foiled by the a countermine dug by the defenders. These tunnels were discovered in the Victorian era when a the foundations for a house were being dug. For the non claustrophobic and sure of foot you can venture down into the countermine which is rather narrow and windy through into the mine which is large spacious – at the end of the mine there is a grate pic in the roof which can also be seen in the paving out side the castle grounds pic
Wandering back to my car I passed a house with a sign out the front – saying Preservation Trust, St Andrews Museum & Garden entrance was free so I wandered on in – not a place I would put high on your list of places to visit in St Andrews but mildly interesting – the best part was the garden a lovely oasis and it was delightful to sit quietly for a few minutes and be visited by a bumble bee.
I want to pat a bumble bee!!!! They look so adorable and fuzzy and like they would purr if you did – wonder what a bee would sound like a purring – maybe more of a buuurrrrrrrrzzzzzz
Photos @ Kodak
St Andrews
St Andrews Castle
St Andrews Cathedral
St Andrews Museum & Garden
Sunday dawned bright and sunny – well I’m assuming it did as I most certainly wasn’t up at dawn.
With a clear sunny sky – I headed off South on the half hour mildly scenic drive to St Andrews. Parking in St Andrews is a bit of nightmare but thankfully as it was Sunday parking restrictions didn’t apply – there are actually park and ride centres just out side the city centre – but didn’t learn about those until my day was over – well I know for next time.
I had intended to start my visit to St Andrews with one of “100 things to do in Scotland before you die” by having a custard slice from Fisher and Donaldson bakery however it was closed – but gives me an excuse to visit St Andrews again ;)
Decided to keep things simple by picking 2 attractions to see and no, one of them was not the golf course. I choose the Castle & the Cathedral. Both are ruins with a long and somewhat bloody history.
Both the Castle & the Cathedral both had an actor doing little character monologues giving a little of the history of the places.
My first port of call was the castle where I purchased my joint entry ticket to both ruins. And in for a penny in for a pound I also shelled out £2.95 each for booklets for self guided tour of each ruin – not entirely convinced that they were worth the money – but they did get me neatly around both ruins
I was advised that both the Castle & the Cathedral both had an actor doing little character monologues giving a little of the history of the places with the Cathedrals next performance in half an hour – so I headed to the Cathedral.
The Cathedral like so many things in this country isn’t just a historical tourist attraction it’s a living part of the community. People are still interned in this cemetery and as such the grounds are open to all and in addition all the tourists there were many merry picnic groups in the grounds.
Here your admittance gets you access to 2 displays of stone carvings and to the St Rules Tower which is one of the most complete structures at the Cathedral and with your token the non claustrophobic and unafeared of heights can take a steep climb up some very circular stairs and you are presented with a rather breath taking view of St Andrews.
Seeing these tombs pic it becomes clear why incense was/is such a feature of Catholic church services – these tombs were under the floor that had to get stinky!
It was quite fascinating seeing the different styles of headstones through the centuries – the older ones featured skulls and cross bones, and used the words, corpse and body no beating around the bush here. It was also quite common not to just give the date of death and age but no birthdate. And others listed not a burial but a true memorial listing the location of a person’s internment else where in the world.
Following the Actors little presentation which while somewhat informative was pretty average to be honest – I wandered a little more around the cathedral before heading back to the castle for the 2pm performance there. It was the same actor at the Castle as at the Cathedral and once again it was an adequate performance – following the performance I finished my self guided tour of the castle including the underground tunnels.
The Castle was sieged at one point in time with the siegers trying to bring the walls down by tunnelling under the walls the siegers were foiled by the a countermine dug by the defenders. These tunnels were discovered in the Victorian era when a the foundations for a house were being dug. For the non claustrophobic and sure of foot you can venture down into the countermine which is rather narrow and windy through into the mine which is large spacious – at the end of the mine there is a grate pic in the roof which can also be seen in the paving out side the castle grounds pic
Wandering back to my car I passed a house with a sign out the front – saying Preservation Trust, St Andrews Museum & Garden entrance was free so I wandered on in – not a place I would put high on your list of places to visit in St Andrews but mildly interesting – the best part was the garden a lovely oasis and it was delightful to sit quietly for a few minutes and be visited by a bumble bee.
I want to pat a bumble bee!!!! They look so adorable and fuzzy and like they would purr if you did – wonder what a bee would sound like a purring – maybe more of a buuurrrrrrrrzzzzzz
Photos @ Kodak
St Andrews
St Andrews Castle
St Andrews Cathedral
St Andrews Museum & Garden
Dundee Ceroc Party
Last Saturday night was the first of the new regular Dundee Ceroc Dance Party. And although I wasn’t much in a dancing mood, which wasn’t helped by rather too much blues music from Dance Demon early on, it was a fun night as there were many visitors from Glasgow, Edinburgh & Aberdeen – so there was plenty of good company to natter with. Tiggerbabes set later was more inspiring but by that time I was just not in the mood.
The night was a success though and I look forward to the August one.
The night was a success though and I look forward to the August one.
Saturday 15 July 2006
Hamish Hunting
Went to the movies Friday night to see Superman Returns – this is not a movie that I would normally bother going to see at movies and on opening night none the less. But these are the things we do for friends. Hamish was an extra on and off for several months when this film was being shot in Sydney and in one instance even flew back from NZ for some shooting.
So I went with the impossible task of trying to spot one person amongst dozens and it proved to be beyond my capabilities. But it was fun trying.
Over all the move was a nice light bit of watching - although it's easy to see either a sequal or TV series spin off bringing up junior.
I foresee a movie night when it comes out on DVD to try again
Templeton Woods
Got an early mark on Friday and as I had practical shoes in my car decided to make the most of the delightful sunny weather and finally visit the local woods.
Templeton Woods were and weren't what I was expecting.
It wasn't as quiet as I thought it would be the woods is bordered by roads on 2 sides so there was a fair bit of abient road noise and just general surburan noise.
It WAS exactly as I had read about in dozens of english novels - although the only wild life I saw were these birds - they are bit hard to see in this picture
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they were flitting and chattering around and I suspect that the one in the photo was trying to get the others organised.
I was hoping to see a red squirrel but hopefuly next time.
Saw this wrapped around a flower stem - not sure what it is - and think the bubbles look beautiful close up. In reality though it looked more like that bubbly spit that younger siblings make to drive older siblings nuts.
The rest of my photographic efforts from the woods can be found on here on Kodak for the pick of the bunch check out flickr
Thursday 13 July 2006
My Apologies to Commenters
My apologies to those people who made comments and were wondering where the hell they had gone.
Blogger had turned comment moderation on but because I hadn’t put an email address for that function I wasn’t getting emails letting me know that comments needed moderating.
I have freed all trapped comments and have turned moderation off so now when you add a comment it will appear immediately - have added an email address so if it happens again I will know when comments come in
Once again my sincere apologies for this and thank you so very much for your lovely comments
Blogger had turned comment moderation on but because I hadn’t put an email address for that function I wasn’t getting emails letting me know that comments needed moderating.
I have freed all trapped comments and have turned moderation off so now when you add a comment it will appear immediately - have added an email address so if it happens again I will know when comments come in
Once again my sincere apologies for this and thank you so very much for your lovely comments
The Dangers of Googling
Was a bit bored at work so decided to do some Google searches on some of my friends. One of the searches turned up a site by another friend in Perth – so thinking it will be nice to read a bit from home followed the link where I got a bit of nasty surprise.
The write up was about a dance event in Perth and in with all the happy lovely stuff – I got a sentence all to myself saying how I was “a conniving, nasty piece of work” it was rather a shock to read this as the person writing it was someone who I thought of as a friend – not a bestest friend but a friend – the sort you happily chat with at class and look forward to seeing and notice when they aren’t around.
I’m not sure what I did to them real or imagined to deserve that comment – but despite the comment being old it has really stung me and I’m not sure how I will feel when I seem them when I am next in Perth again. Thankfully it’s a long way off.
So the lesson here is 2 fold
The write up was about a dance event in Perth and in with all the happy lovely stuff – I got a sentence all to myself saying how I was “a conniving, nasty piece of work” it was rather a shock to read this as the person writing it was someone who I thought of as a friend – not a bestest friend but a friend – the sort you happily chat with at class and look forward to seeing and notice when they aren’t around.
I’m not sure what I did to them real or imagined to deserve that comment – but despite the comment being old it has really stung me and I’m not sure how I will feel when I seem them when I am next in Perth again. Thankfully it’s a long way off.
So the lesson here is 2 fold
- be careful what you put on the big wide web as you never know who wil find it
- if you go a googling you may not always like what you find
Wednesday 12 July 2006
A bonus for the travelling fund
This Saturday the travelling fund is going to get a boost – I am doing some work directly for University of Dundee, and as this is direct will be getting paid around double the rate I get paid when I work via an agency. YEAH!
Monday 10 July 2006
Sunday Dinner
On Sunday I treated to a home cooked Sunday dinner by the fabulous Bob & Caroline. Bob & Caroline are venue managers at the Monday & Thursday night venues I DJ at. Bob picked me up at 2.30pm which allowed me to have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner with no worry.
Dinner started with an entrée of smoked salmon and prawns and salad delicious – especially the smoked salmon which I am normally not a big fan of – the flavour was much more delicate than I have ever encountered before. Main course was melt in the mouth roast lamb with organic veggies. An dessert was homemade strawberry tarts – well the pastry was bought but the filling and glaze was homemade – and god knows I I wouldn’t even have attempted to make that much of them. And they were the most delicious tarts mmmmmm.
As a thank you for their hospitality rather than risk wine – not knowing the brands here I suspected I would end up choosing something hideous, I next considered cut flowers but apart from the super market didn’t know where to get them and the ones at the supermarket weren’t very inspiring. So in the end I settled on 2 small flowering plants – I didn’t know if B&C were gardeners as such but if they weren’t the plants would last at least as long as cut flowers. As it turns out Caroline is into gardening and has a lovely garden :)
It was a lovely afternoon of good food and great company including the lovely Tilly the cat to pat.
Dinner started with an entrée of smoked salmon and prawns and salad delicious – especially the smoked salmon which I am normally not a big fan of – the flavour was much more delicate than I have ever encountered before. Main course was melt in the mouth roast lamb with organic veggies. An dessert was homemade strawberry tarts – well the pastry was bought but the filling and glaze was homemade – and god knows I I wouldn’t even have attempted to make that much of them. And they were the most delicious tarts mmmmmm.
As a thank you for their hospitality rather than risk wine – not knowing the brands here I suspected I would end up choosing something hideous, I next considered cut flowers but apart from the super market didn’t know where to get them and the ones at the supermarket weren’t very inspiring. So in the end I settled on 2 small flowering plants – I didn’t know if B&C were gardeners as such but if they weren’t the plants would last at least as long as cut flowers. As it turns out Caroline is into gardening and has a lovely garden :)
It was a lovely afternoon of good food and great company including the lovely Tilly the cat to pat.
I did good in Glasgow
On Saturday I drove over to Glasgow to DJ at their monthly Ceroc Party, I was somewhat nervous about this as I was warned that the Glasgow Crew were rather difficult to please.
Anyway I departed from Dundee a little late around 3.20pm the plan was to leave at 3pm arrive at Pretzelmeister’s around 5pm have time for dinner and to get changed before leaving to for the venue to set up. Well things went pretty much to plan – except for the arriving at the venue to set up – I didn’t have the right intersection programmed into TomTom and drove right by the venue where in it took me 15 minutes to get myself back to the venue by which time I was running late!!! But with Franck’s assistance was all set up by 8.02pm – just 2 minutes late – and with only one punter in the room! Phew!
Glasgow university is a very graceful looking building but a nightmare of a room set up and sound wise. Set up wise it’s difficult as there is only 1 that’s right 1 working power point!! Off this power point on a configuration of 2 extension cords and 3 powerboards we ran
Spent a large part of the night half expecting the sparks to fly – thankfully they didn’t.
From here the night got better – although it was disconcerting that it took about 20-35 minutes before anyone started dancing, according to Franck this is normal they like to have a natter before hitting the dance floor.
At about 9pm there was a short Blues lesson and then the dancing started in earnest. As there was a blues room starting at 10pm upstairs the mix I played in the mainroom was pretty upbeat – mostly middle of the road with a few faster songs and a few slower ones.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying the music through the night – floor was busy most of the time and there wasn’t a mass exodus when the blues room opened so figured I hadn’t got it completely wrong. However at the end of the night I discovered I had done better than not just getting it wrong – they had actually really liked it. I had one couple come up to me directly and tell me how much they had enjoyed the music and Franck relayed several other compliments including one person asking if he could get me back again!! Needless to say I was a happy wee elf!!
Pretzelmeister and McJester assisted me with my pack down and packing the car which meant a lazy pack for me – as they kindly did the heavy caring.
The 3 of us headed back to Pretzelmeister delightful domain where we indulged in drinks, dancing & discussion. McJester was a somewhat sensible fellow and headed home around 4.30am or so I think – time had become a somewhat abstract concept at this point.
And after a water fight that he started and in which I displayed my complete lack of eye hand co-ordination by completely missing a stationary Pretzelmeister from 3 feet away, we finally headed to our beds sometime after 6am.
At a l1am my alarm drove me from bed – as I need to be heading back to Dundee by 12-ish.
My gallant host provided me with a cooked breakfast/lunch to sustain me on my journey and I was away not much past 12.
The other highlight of the Glasgow party was getting to meet several more forumites – including in one case chatting with one but not realising she was a forumite *blush*
And I’m looking forward to meeting more of them at the Dundee party this Saturday.
Anyway I departed from Dundee a little late around 3.20pm the plan was to leave at 3pm arrive at Pretzelmeister’s around 5pm have time for dinner and to get changed before leaving to for the venue to set up. Well things went pretty much to plan – except for the arriving at the venue to set up – I didn’t have the right intersection programmed into TomTom and drove right by the venue where in it took me 15 minutes to get myself back to the venue by which time I was running late!!! But with Franck’s assistance was all set up by 8.02pm – just 2 minutes late – and with only one punter in the room! Phew!
Glasgow university is a very graceful looking building but a nightmare of a room set up and sound wise. Set up wise it’s difficult as there is only 1 that’s right 1 working power point!! Off this power point on a configuration of 2 extension cords and 3 powerboards we ran
- mixer
- Laptop
- 2 speakers
- 2 little swirly lights
- 2 fans
- 1 rope light and
- 1 set of 4 coloured lights.
Spent a large part of the night half expecting the sparks to fly – thankfully they didn’t.
From here the night got better – although it was disconcerting that it took about 20-35 minutes before anyone started dancing, according to Franck this is normal they like to have a natter before hitting the dance floor.
At about 9pm there was a short Blues lesson and then the dancing started in earnest. As there was a blues room starting at 10pm upstairs the mix I played in the mainroom was pretty upbeat – mostly middle of the road with a few faster songs and a few slower ones.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying the music through the night – floor was busy most of the time and there wasn’t a mass exodus when the blues room opened so figured I hadn’t got it completely wrong. However at the end of the night I discovered I had done better than not just getting it wrong – they had actually really liked it. I had one couple come up to me directly and tell me how much they had enjoyed the music and Franck relayed several other compliments including one person asking if he could get me back again!! Needless to say I was a happy wee elf!!
Pretzelmeister and McJester assisted me with my pack down and packing the car which meant a lazy pack for me – as they kindly did the heavy caring.
The 3 of us headed back to Pretzelmeister delightful domain where we indulged in drinks, dancing & discussion. McJester was a somewhat sensible fellow and headed home around 4.30am or so I think – time had become a somewhat abstract concept at this point.
And after a water fight that he started and in which I displayed my complete lack of eye hand co-ordination by completely missing a stationary Pretzelmeister from 3 feet away, we finally headed to our beds sometime after 6am.
At a l1am my alarm drove me from bed – as I need to be heading back to Dundee by 12-ish.
My gallant host provided me with a cooked breakfast/lunch to sustain me on my journey and I was away not much past 12.
The other highlight of the Glasgow party was getting to meet several more forumites – including in one case chatting with one but not realising she was a forumite *blush*
And I’m looking forward to meeting more of them at the Dundee party this Saturday.
Sunday 9 July 2006
Real Live Cemetery
On Friday I got an early mark and the sun was Shining so something out doors seemed appropriate – as I didn’t have sensible shoes on a walk in the woods was out of the question so I decided to to drop in and check out a cemetery I had driven past a few times.
I have visited many cemeteries over the years – I find the stories the memorials can tell fascinating – when I was a Uni I used to eat my lunch in the oldest graveyard in Wellington – it was a lovely peaceful place with lots of green around.
And not for any reason you would guess – but because it was a live cemetery the graves here weren’t some sort of history of the area they belonged to here and now, connected to this world. The youngest grave I saw had a date of 14 June 06 on it!! These graves belonged not to the person in them but the families that mourned them and came to visit and care for them.
It was interesting to see land so clearly set aside for new graves.
The other thing that I found interesting was that the gravestones or more to the point that there were gravestones as when I visited my grandmothers memorial– that most of the graves there had plaques in the ground – apparently the cemetery didn’t allow stones as they were to hard to mow around. Personally I prefer the gravestones just seems more fitting/proper ...
I have visited many cemeteries over the years – I find the stories the memorials can tell fascinating – when I was a Uni I used to eat my lunch in the oldest graveyard in Wellington – it was a lovely peaceful place with lots of green around.
Anyway this cemetery creeped me out!!!
And not for any reason you would guess – but because it was a live cemetery the graves here weren’t some sort of history of the area they belonged to here and now, connected to this world. The youngest grave I saw had a date of 14 June 06 on it!! These graves belonged not to the person in them but the families that mourned them and came to visit and care for them.
It was interesting to see land so clearly set aside for new graves.
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The other thing that I found interesting was that the gravestones or more to the point that there were gravestones as when I visited my grandmothers memorial– that most of the graves there had plaques in the ground – apparently the cemetery didn’t allow stones as they were to hard to mow around. Personally I prefer the gravestones just seems more fitting/proper ...
Thursday 6 July 2006
Floating through the fog
Driving home from class last Tuesday was an interesting experience – while we were inside dancing our toes off a fog had descended over the land.
A fascinating lightly glowing blue blanket of fog caressed the landscape. Peering into the fog obscuring the green fields I felt a great desire to step forward into this seemingly magical world and see if the fairy would take me on an adventure or would I just be left to wander aimlessly.
The reality was a rather surreal drive home with minimum visibility – which really should have been stressful but there was something rather soothing about it.
It was as if I was floating along in a bubble, with only the occasional power pole or building to mark my passing by. Sometimes if felt as if I was just suspended in time and would be forever travelling in my fog bubble – which now sounds very horror movie scary but it wasn’t.
A fascinating lightly glowing blue blanket of fog caressed the landscape. Peering into the fog obscuring the green fields I felt a great desire to step forward into this seemingly magical world and see if the fairy would take me on an adventure or would I just be left to wander aimlessly.
The reality was a rather surreal drive home with minimum visibility – which really should have been stressful but there was something rather soothing about it.
It was as if I was floating along in a bubble, with only the occasional power pole or building to mark my passing by. Sometimes if felt as if I was just suspended in time and would be forever travelling in my fog bubble – which now sounds very horror movie scary but it wasn’t.
Monday 3 July 2006
well done Jessie & Susan
Just got some lovely news from Melbourne, Australia - Ceroc Melbourne has a local comp and a couple of the students from Albert Park came second in the Intermediate category.
WOO HOO!!! Jessie & Susan - you guys ROCK!!!!!!!
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