The last week since being back from the Isle of Skye tour has gone by quite quickly though quite uneventfully. The highlight of the week was attending a Ceilidh (pronounced Kaylee) on Friday night with Lucy and a few of her friends. This Ceilidh was a fundraising event but Ceilidhs are held quite often throughout the year and are very popular at weddings as they are a traditional Scottish dance thing.
The best way to describe the Ceilidhs is to imagine the scene from the Titanic movie where the common folk downstairs are having a party, spinning each other around and generally being crazy. The night was filled with lots of hand holding, spinning, skipping, side stepping, docie do’ing and more spinning. The band consisted of a drummer, guitarist piano player and of course the main ingredient, the violinist. The fast pace of the violin really set the standard of dancing which was frantic to say the least.
Lucy's friend Fay plays in a Ceilidh band herself so is a solid dancer. Upon arriving she almost immediately had me up for a dance. After spinning around for a good 5 minutes and running around in circles I was surprised at how puffed I was, its hard work! The night consisted of dancing, taking a break for a drink, then dancing again. Each song was roughly 5 minutes long and each had a different dance routine to follow. The MC gave a quick rundown of the moves at the start and then the music was on and away you go.
Halfway through the night the lights came on signalling food time! I filled my paper plate with a selection of cut sandwiches & these tiny sausage looking things called Wee Willy Winkie’s that tasted like, ummmm turkey? At our table I was sitting next to Alec, a 58 year old grandfather and quite a stocky bloke. When he arrived he immediately gave me a bottle of Millers and cracked one open for himself, cheers! His first bottle was emptied before Id even started mine and I half expected him to end up slurring and spitting but thankfully he didn’t get that wasted. He kept commenting about how great it was for young people to be attending these events because its real Scottish tradition, at least I think that’s what he was getting at, it was hard to follow his thick Scottish accent.
The venue was a small hall with stands at the back wall which the band was in front of. Tables had been set up against the side walls leaving the empty middle of the hall as the dance floor. There was a large group of girls from New Zealand that were all wearing the same black stockings, short black and white tartan skirts and black tops. The rest of the mostly young crowd were mixed between fancy and casual dressed. It was a BYOB event so most tables had a carton of beer to share. Our table had my bottle of vodka, Alec and Michaels carton of Millers and Lucy and Rachel’s cask of nasty wine.
The final dance of the night was easily the craziest. Its the first time I’ve been to an event like this where everyone was up dancing, there wasn’t a single person seated. The small hall was packed! We were split into two groups and each group into two lines, guys on one side girls on the other. When you’re at the top of the line you lock arms with your partner and spin around for as long as you like then loop your way down to the end of the line. The looping part is where u skip toward the next person, interlock your arms and spin around once, let go then loop with your partner in the middle and then let go as u head toward the next person. Some of the girls were pretty strong and would fling you out and one time I even crashed straight into Lucy, oops! By the time you reach the end of the line your arm is starting to ache, you’re really dizzy and out of breath. But it’s not over yet because it keeps going and you slowly end up back at the top of the line and have to spin your way back to the end. Crazy fun! =)
At the end of the night we were all equally exhausted and drunk. We stumbled down the road to my hostel but being midnight Lucy & Rachel weren’t allowed in, so we caught a taxi to Lucy’s place instead. It was interesting to be back at Lucy’s place, the familiar streets I used to run along and the four flights of stairs up to her flat, which still aren’t any easier.
With not much to do but drink we decided to play a drinking game. We didn’t have any cards so I came up with a game. We took it in turn to choose a TV channel with the remote, if the channel was rubbish then you had to have a drink, if it was a good channel then everyone else drank, if it was a blank channel then we all drank. After a few rounds and too many blank channels we switched to the music channels and made rules to drink when certain lyrics were sung. Yep, we got pretty smashed!
I walked back to the hostel at 6am and stopped in at Maccas, the booze was slowly starting to leave my system and I had the munchies. Maccas breakfast is much better back home than here, although it’s been over a year since I’ve had Maccas for breakfast so maybe its crap everywhere now.
The night was absolutely crazy and heaps of fun. A great end to my time in Edinburgh!
