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So, I was up hugging sheep in Banchory, Scotland over the weekend. This trip included a harrowing (for my passengers) trip across the highlands in a Peugeot 301 with manual transmission. I last drove a manual in, oh, 1994 or so. It went surprisingly well, I thought, but for a couple of issues starting up on hills, and in reverse (another driver verified that this car's gearbox didn't like to stay in reverse, so it wasn't all my fault).
We were there to see a friend's institution as the rector and priest-in-charge of two Scottish Episcopal Church parishes up that way. The highlight of the trip was talking to the parishoners at the welcome reception (well, that, and the Provost of the Cathedral of Aberdeen, who has an excellent bowler hat, and who looked interesting in the line of 3 copes in the front row of one of the churches). At one, we had the beekeeping laird of the area, a man who had been captured at Dunkirk and escaped from German POW camps 12 times (he was a tunneler; according to his wife, he liked the solitude. Additionally, he melted down cigarette papers for the led and made belt buckles and buttons and things. Some of his handiwork is in the Imperial War Museum. Needless to say, he was the one who took a seat next to the famous grouse and pitcher of water :), and an old fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, who had been there for 100 terms, amongst his various visiting gigs in the US.
And then there were the more mundane, like the woman who restores ironwork in cathedrals all over europe....
The other reception included a former professor at the university of sierra leone, and the wife of a clan chief who talked of her love of Kentucky and Tennessee and the old New Orleans; they apparently got to visit the US a few times for the Highland Games.
Compared to that, the Ceilidh was hardly worth mentioning.
On another church-related note, I will say that the visiting rector at St. Giles, where we went the previous week, was straight out of Python central casting. "We need an eccentric vicar with a high voice!" "Done!"
Quoth the priest:
"Now, [this book] was written by a slightly eccentric vicar...You must realize that when the phrase, "slightly eccentric" is followed by the word, "vicar" he must have been absolutely certifiable...."
Also, my parents were in Oxford all week. It was very good. We went to the Eagle and Child and the Radcliffe Arms and, uh, took a brief sidetrip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Patrick Stewart as Prospero at the RSC. :) :) :)
We were there to see a friend's institution as the rector and priest-in-charge of two Scottish Episcopal Church parishes up that way. The highlight of the trip was talking to the parishoners at the welcome reception (well, that, and the Provost of the Cathedral of Aberdeen, who has an excellent bowler hat, and who looked interesting in the line of 3 copes in the front row of one of the churches). At one, we had the beekeeping laird of the area, a man who had been captured at Dunkirk and escaped from German POW camps 12 times (he was a tunneler; according to his wife, he liked the solitude. Additionally, he melted down cigarette papers for the led and made belt buckles and buttons and things. Some of his handiwork is in the Imperial War Museum. Needless to say, he was the one who took a seat next to the famous grouse and pitcher of water :), and an old fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, who had been there for 100 terms, amongst his various visiting gigs in the US.
And then there were the more mundane, like the woman who restores ironwork in cathedrals all over europe....
The other reception included a former professor at the university of sierra leone, and the wife of a clan chief who talked of her love of Kentucky and Tennessee and the old New Orleans; they apparently got to visit the US a few times for the Highland Games.
Compared to that, the Ceilidh was hardly worth mentioning.
On another church-related note, I will say that the visiting rector at St. Giles, where we went the previous week, was straight out of Python central casting. "We need an eccentric vicar with a high voice!" "Done!"
Quoth the priest:
"Now, [this book] was written by a slightly eccentric vicar...You must realize that when the phrase, "slightly eccentric" is followed by the word, "vicar" he must have been absolutely certifiable...."
Also, my parents were in Oxford all week. It was very good. We went to the Eagle and Child and the Radcliffe Arms and, uh, took a brief sidetrip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Patrick Stewart as Prospero at the RSC. :) :) :)
