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Published: June 11th 2007
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Karaoke gone wild
The rams
Gillan Sleeping during lecture on the floor My last weekend was spent on the west coast of Scotland. Jeanette and I were invited over by one of our classmates, Davina to stay in Lochgilphead for the weekend. I had no idea, of course, that Davina was actually a student teacher/property mogul. She put us up in one of her places, this one in the centre of town, a small apartment that’s been refurbished with all the modern amenities yet still retains its 18th, 19th century structure. Davina got a puppy 5 months ago and asked me if she could name her after me. Some people might find that strange but I thought it was great. So now she is the mother of a chocolate Labrador named Hansee. All weekend it was “Hansee! Hansee! Good girl! Come Girl!”. And Jeanette had plenty of nasty jokes to go with it all. The dog does take after me in more than just name, though. She falls asleep almost instantly when she gets in the car.
We left Friday afternoon and it took about 2 hours to get to Lochgilphead. The scenery along the way is breathtaking. Most of the drive was along the coast line or in the valley
with occasional standing stones, castles and old ruins along the way. We met up with some other classmates who were staying the weekend at a trailer about half an hour away right along the beach. The barbecue resembled a witch’s cauldron, pretty fitting for a bunch of women who just finished teacher training.
On Saturday we went to the Isle of Gigha. The island is so small you could probably walk it in a day. The water is amazingly clear and the climate warm. You could mistake yourself to be on a tropical island. The island is just a short 20min ferry ride from the mainland. We decided to walk up to see the “famous” garden. Really, most of the sightseeing was on the walk to the garden. The garden itself didn’t seem to have anything that special. It was mostly green grass. As we left the garden in a rush to make it for the next sailing, a woman started calling out “excuse me!”. The girls kept going but I turned around to see what she wanted. It turned out she was trying to reprimand us for not paying the entrance fee of 3.50£. Now that’s like 7$
and nobody would pay that to see that garden. The entrance is marked with a small hut and a tent serving tea. The hut has an “honesty box” attached to the side. The lady pointed out to me that on top of the honesty box is a price list in small writing. Hmmmmm… now I may be wrong but I thought you chose what to put into a an honesty box. Anyway, she wanted me to pay for me and my 3 friends who “ran off”. I refused to and would only pay for myself. She finally agreed to it and kept muttering that we were obviously dishonest and that she would call the hotel and ferry people to make my friends pay. I caught up with my friends who thought I was having a chat with someone and we had to run for the last 10 min to the ferry. Luckily the island is so small the ferry people could probably see us running from the garden. Somehow we got away with not paying, even when Hansee, the dog, ran into the restaurant kitchen of the hotel. I can just imagine the woman’s call to the ferry people: “Be
Trailer on the beach
Point Sands at Tayinloan on the look out for an asian girl, her 3 friends and a brown dog. They will pay damn it! They will pay!”
We spent Sunday walking around an area called Crinan. It’s a sort of remote but touristy area surrounding a man made canal. It’s a post card perfect place where Davina and her boyfriend are building their dream home. We had a nice long walk around the area. It turns out that my friend the property mogul also owns land for raising sheep and the infamous highland cows. On the walk we stopped off at this eccentric artist’s place to view some of his stuff. He literally lives right on the edge of the canal in a hut the size of a bathroom and bathes in the canal water. He spends his time cycling around town painting things. And he is Canadian, from Montreal originally. We stopped for tea at the canal basin and then went to see a castle. It was another great day in Scotland. As much as I miss Vancouver, these last few days enjoying Scotland have been so nice that I am really in no hurry to get home.
Roll on Monday-
more lectures. Even though we’ve all graduated, we’re still required to come to Uni for three more days of lectures. The amount of complaints I have about the course I just finished would require another blog so I won’t get into it. Gillan, the rugby player/merit earning student teacher/party animal, showed up at school at 9am absolutely wasted. Apparently he was only woken up 2 hours before that by some security people patrolling the Glasgow Uni lawn. He showed up before class at the school café demanding them to serve beer, but settled for a glass of milk. He then proceeded to tell us about the origins of condiments. Did you know that condiment packets used to be packaged in latex and that’s where condoms come from? All I know is that I could have gotten drunk off the fumes emanating from him. When lectures started he did a round around the balcony area, where we were sitting, to talk to everyone, just in case everybody and their dog didn’t already know he was smashed. At 11am he was crashed out on the balcony floor snoring and trying to swing his leg over other people’s chairs. At 1pm he got
his wind back and bought some more beer at the Uni pub.
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lora
non-member comment
you will pay!
ahahahaha. awsome. so glad you're enjoying your last days in scotlandville. miss you. p.s. hansee the puppy is tooooo cute...and you are too! p.p.s. i am working in a salon in kelowna called Cream. come get your hair did!