Braemar trip, something's begun!

Had a spur of the moment decision to go to Braemar for the weekend.  Major eye-roll moment right? The choice to go to a non-fancy village in Scotland?  But guess what?  Some weekends gotta be spent just like that.  Relaxed, wandering about on quiet roads in a mini blizzard and then going to a bar to get a warm drink.    And then you are lucky if Serendipity takes over to make things go from quietly pleasant to fantastic. 

As it happened on that dark, Sunday evening.  After a long walk in the snow, the plan was to get hot chocolate at the local bar and go find some place to eat.  (Which left us with exactly 2 places.  Our hotel.  And this bar!  The only 'fancy' restaurant is shut on Sundays(!)  and the only coffee shop in the village closes at 4! Oh, while we are at it, I might as well tell you that we had to actually knock on the the fancy restaurant's door on Saturday evening to be let in for dinner.  Funny place Braemar).

So there we are at the near empty bar, sipping warm chocolate, when my eyes wander to the Liquer bar lined with fancy bottles and colourful jars.  'How about a drink before we go?' me ventures.  PIC (Partner in Crime) agrees.  And thus began Yours Truly's discovery of the magic liquid called Liquer!  (Baileys and Kahlua? ***scoff scoff**). So after a few shots of various colourful liquids, (which we just randomly picked based simply on the bottle's design) and prentending to be novice connoisseurs, another very amused (master) bartender, becomes interested in our ways!  He says, 'Well, I can whip up a few cocktail shots or proper cocktails for you ladies if you'd like'.  
What the heck, we thought, we got the time, after all.  'Option A' we screamed.  Ah... Best.Choice.Ever.

'Thought you ladies might like that!'

Whoo to great bartenders!

 Got a gorgeous bottle of Chambord sitting in my cupboard now.  Roll on Cocktail parties!!

Would you send a Clavie please?

I jumped at the prospect when N suggested that we go to another Pagan New Year festival.  2 NY celebrations in one year?  'Hell, ya'.. I said.  'Nope! Not that one, a smaller version of it' he calmly responded.  Unbeknownst that any such thing existed, I waited, a little confused.  Soon found out that the said celebration was to be at a little known village called Burghead, about 3 hours drive from Aberdeen, on the Northern tip of Aberdeenshire. 

Celebrated on the 11th of Jan, this is Burghead's version of Hogmanay.  Adopting the Georgian calendar back in 1660, meant that their Hogmanay fell 11 days after the new New Year.  So while the rest of the UK celebrates 1 New Year, Burghead gets to do it twice!

I decided early on, that I  had to compensate for the Stonehaven debacle.  So at the risk of losing my friends,I tried to get as close to the Star performers as much as possible.  In brief, this is what the festival all about:

On the night of the 11th, the Clavie, a wooden barrel filled with wood shavings and tar is nailed to a post.  Didn't see this part of the custom as we didn't get into town till about 6pm.  Rumour has it that the same nail is used, year after year. The Clavie is then carried to the home of one of the town's oldest residents, the Burghead Provost, who lights the clavie with peat from his own hearth. We got in town just in time to see the elected Clavie King , along with several other men - usually fishermen - come out of a garden and then carrying the burning clavie clockwise around the town, stopping now and then to present smoldering embers to various householders. 

Dying for a proper photo, me starts chasing the Clavie King, only to have a burly bellow into my face to get out of the day.  Soon am swept by the crowd, losing friends but am too focused to be worried about being lost. Following the Clavie from a distance now, I made my way to the ancient alter in a stone fort on Doorie Hill.  The rest is explained in the photo and the video below.

Just watch as the Clavie is wedged between wooden stoves and burned till nothing is left off it!  The entire hillock is on fire.  Apparently the fire show on the hill, in ancient times, was for all the neighbouring villages to see and herald the New Year.  Burn away the old and ring in the new!

There's more.  Once the barrel falls to the ground in pieces, the Clavie Crew started throwing pieces of ember down the hill towards the public!  'Oh, that's very nice'! I thought totally indignant.  'Set the onlookers on fire! Or maybe its a sport.  To see if people can avoid being burnt!'  But while I was thinking all this, guess what the onlookers did?  Clamber towards the burning embers, up the hill, grabbing them!!  Apparently, wood from the burnt Clavie is supposed to bring good luck and families took home the best and biggest of the embers they can find to keep in their homes!  As bewildered tourists we just stood and gawked as children and adults screamed 'Here, throw it this way' at some of the crew members. Once we watched the last of the locals skipping along with their treasures for the day, we clambered up the hill to see if there was anything leftover that would bring us any luck.  Sure enough we found bits of wood which was good enough.  That would just have to do for the time being!!

Btw folks, while researching the Clavie festival discovered that Scotland has a lot of Pagan festivals going on and aboot!  Some of the ones that I aspire to get to eventually following are:

• Beltane, Edinburgh, April 30th
• Burning of the Clocks, Brighton December 21.
• Guy Fawkes Bonfire, Lewes, East Sussex, November 5,
• Up-Helly-Aa, Shetland, 28th Jan 2014

Woohoo.. bring it on

When Snow White isn't the fairest of them all..

Well.. can't live in the UK and not go for a Panto during Christmas time, can I?  So, for the sake of traditions, yours truly went right off to check out for herself what the fuss was all about.  Now gotta admit that I wasn't all gungho about it.  I did have my doubts. The posters weren't quite appealing.  It was a British musical. But I went anyway.  Gotta admit: going with a  'Surprise me' attitude had its upside.  Came away with a 'Whoa, glad did that one!!'

Part of the decision to go to a Panto was influenced by an old flatmate Alena who went to this Sing-Along show and came away very happy.  (No points for guessing what's on the next 'To do at the Theatre' List!!).  She may have suggested it at some point of time.  Thank you my dear!

Anyhoo, back to the main point.  The panto was just brilliant.  Because I didn't know what to expect, I found the entire concept of topical humour woven into an old fairytale just fantastic!  Like the intro of the main characters.  In walks a man, his head stuck in a bin.  Like the poor devil from October who was looking for his 'bonnet' inside a bin right in the middle of the city by sticking his head into it.  There's the photo if you are not from Aberdeen and missed the main news of that day.  (Check out the passerby who is pointing him to his 'mate'!).   

Anyhoo, the character who gets introduced is Bobby, the 'glaikit' son of the Dame, the main heroine.  Yep, its not Snow White, peeps who is going to get you, but the Dame.  The Dame and the Son are just hilarious and thoroughly adorable.  .

Every bit of the panto was fun! Inclduing the names of the characters that were made up a-la Asterix. The Prince was Peter from Culter, the 7 dwarfs were Jokey, Snoozy, Bossy, Grouchy, (can't remember if the other 3 had different names as well or had the original ones)! Sadista is the Wicked Queen, although her dancing to 'Gangman style' and Spice girls made her more of an 'Adora' than a Sadista!

Ofcourse its the age of the 3D and Pantos have to keep up. So when Sadista conjures up a dragon to slay Snow White, it not only grows big but also flies out into the audience! Yes it does! Now why the dragon evenutally didn't go after Snow White is probably contained in all the Doric bellowing that the Dragon spews but talking dragon is great!

The amusing  observations of local areas was another fun bit.

Not only was the entire Panto adorable, but the closing was bang-on.  Sadista's decision to get a new life and then walking in as the Aberdeen Busker was just un-comparably funny.

All in all, the fairest of them all is the Script! Whoever came up with is a genius!

Oh.. if anyone else ever sells you the 'stiff upper lip' concept about Brits, kick them in their ass (Uh.. arse) and show them this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foHh3Sg47ok

That's what we did at the Panto..

Here's a pic of the entire cast doing a Gangman.

Guess who's gonna go be at the panto in 2013. Elaine C Smith and gang.. you've got a new fan!