Monthly Archives: April 2012

Apr 29 2012
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Scotland, Sport

Rec Hockey in Dumfries – Scottish Plate Weekend

Unfortunately, we didn’t win it like we’d hoped, but it was a fun weekend all the same.

The structure is a little bizarre. Instead of playing three 20 minute periods, each game was two 15 minute periods so even though we played three games on Saturday that was only 90 minutes of running time hockey.

I play goalie for a team called the Edinburgh Stingers

We won our first game against the Dundee Devils by a score of 3 – 2. This game could have very easily been a tie, but we got lucky because of a slightly odd rule that meant one of the Devils goals was called back. All penalties in the tournament were supposed to be called right away (no delayed penalties). So when one of our players hooked a guy coming in on a breakaway they had to call it back when the guy scored.

The second game was against the Highland Capitals. We played with them but they got 2 goals in the first few minutes of the first period and we couldn’t come back. We played them to a scoreless draw in the second period but couldn’t get the offense we needed. The teams were closely matched so if we’d gotten more shots on goal, this game could have gone in our favour.

The third game was against the Dumfries Demons. We’d watched them play the Capitals to a draw earlier in the day so we felt like we had a good chance. They even beat the Glasgow Chiefs, which was a surprise. However, this game did not go well for us from start to finish. We did a lot of puck chasing and didn’t find ourselves in their zone for very much of the game.  The worst bit was I took a hard slap shot through traffic off the inside of the leg that has now swollen up to a nice bruise.

Unfortunately, by the start of our fourth game, we’d been eliminated from medal contention so our game against Glasgow was going to be our last. I started, and George the other goalie went in for the second period. We lost the game making our record 1-3, which was a little disappointing (its always more fun to win) but it was a whole weekend playing and watching hockey which is a pretty fine way to spend a weekend.

The Dumfries rink is a little smaller than the ones at Murrayfield or Dundee, and I feel like I spent most of this trip either at the rink or the hotel. I didn’t feel like I had the energy or inclination to do a proper tour around Dumfries and Galloway, but may do that over the next couple of months. I’ve yet to make a visit to the Globe Tavern or the Robbie Burns House plus there is some good cycling in that area that may warrant further investigation.

The Wickerman Festival is also nearby, so will have to see about that.

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Apr 25 2012
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Scotland

Visiting Pitlochry

This past weekend, we took an overnight trip to Pitlochry in Perthshire for a little exploration and adventure.

I’d heard good things about it but was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more to do. The village is very tiny – you can walk from one end to the other in a matter of minutes. The buildings are beautiful and the whole place is filled with hotels and very picturesque. We even had dinner and drinks at the Old Mill Inn. We ended up going for a walk on Saturday and enjoying a little of the countryside. There are some pretty fantastic views within a short walk.

Getting up in the morning, we passed a group of two dozen cyclists – there was literature at the hostel highlighting some of the cycling trails nearby and bike shops in town. We hadn’t made plans to go cycling, so ended up catching a bus to the nearby Blair Castle and Gardens.

I think I’ll do a later post about the castle because it was pretty packed full of history.

After finishing there, we took a walk around the grounds. It was a little strange actually because a lot of North American trees were planted including some big Douglas Firs and California Redwoods. It almost felt like I was walking through a forest  back home.

On the edges of the grounds was the old kirk, resting place of Bonnie Dundee, the Jacobite general immortalized by Sir Walter Scott in the famous folk song.

Bonnie Dundee by the Corries

Bonnie Dundee, aka the Bluidy Clavers, actual name was John Graham 7th Laird of Claverhouse, was a professional soldier, close friend of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and military leader of the Jacobite army. He died at the Battle of Killecrankie which was fought nearby. It was an important victory for the Jacobites, but also a costly one.

Without their leader, Killecrankie was followed up by a major defeat nearby at Dunkeld.

From Blair Castle, we walked backed to Blair Atholl, and then went on to the Killecrankie visitor centre for lunch before starting a hike back to Pitlochry. There was lots of information about the battle including a few interesting sights along the way. Like the name suggests, Soldier’s Leap is the place from where a retreating government soldier leaped from the rocks into the river below to escape pursuing Jacobites.

The railway viaduct was really impressive, and we passed a high bridge with a bungee jumping platform. Its weird because its something I’ve wanted to do for a while but have really got around to.

Lots of people were taking advantage of the outdoors. People were fishing, biking, walking their dogs, and it was a good six mile walk from the visitor centre to Pitlochry. Luckily we had some decent weather to do it in.

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Apr 24 2012
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edinburgh Video

Adopting a kitten in Scotland was one of the best ideas ever.

Its been almost 6 months that we’ve had her. We named her Eva (after the character in Wall-E). I’d just put some catnip on her scratching post and she went right after it. She’s looking at me as I writing this trying to telepathically convince me that she should get some more. She’s almost a year old now – we got her from the cat shelter in Leith at the end of october and love her to bits… even if she wakes us up way too early on weekends. Also, her whiskers are really long and floppy now – it makes her look like some kind of wizard.

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Apr 16 2012
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Music

Hilarious…public outcry overturns City of Vancouver Engineering Department’s Bagpipe Ban

The ban was so quiet that even the Mayor didn’t know about it until he was questioned by reporters. An award winning piper was informed about it when he tried to apply for his busking license and was denied.

Apparently, the city engineering department had received noise complaints from some particularly non-musical residents and decided the only solution was an outright ban. I’m not saying that there are not two sides to every story, but there is a time when you have to ignore noisy residents and business owners and let common sense prevail. The story is more about bagpipes, however, all percussion instruments were included in the ban, so its hard to figure what kind of reaction city staff were expecting.

As a current Scottish resident and former Vancouver resident, I’ve become a fan of the bagpipes. Its not everyone’s taste, but Vancouver staff could have easily avoided the controversy all together by resolving those complaints with measures short of a ban or just telling those people making the complaints to go culture themselves a little bit. I tolerate all the awful top40 that some of these people like, so they can probably learn to tolerate a few drums and bagpipes for the sake of having a city that is culturally vibrant and musically diverse.

The most newsworthy thing about this incident is how long it took for staff to realize what anyone with common sense could have told them. From the very beginning of the ban, this was only going to go one way. Mayor Gregor Robertson asked staff to examine the ordinance after reporters asked him about it (he couldn’t outright contradict them in public), then it was overturned a few days later with vocal support from other Canadians of scottish descent.

Its good to know that there are still some people who are determined to make Vancouver look like a no fun city.

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Apr 15 2012
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Scotland

Blackness Castle

Just made a day trip to Blackness Castle. The castle is on the shores of the Firth of Forth in West Lothian, about 2 miles from Bo’Ness and fairly  near Edinburgh.

The castle is unique in that it is remarkably complete. It was built in the 15th century and has been in almost continuous use for most of its life. It protects the Forth and the port of Linlithgow, and though it is smaller than the castles in Stirling or Edinburgh it has seen numerous sieges over its history.

The landscape offers excellent defense and the walls here are extremely thick. From the outside, the castle design greatly resembles that of a ship, which is new one for me.

The village of Blackness is very tiny – not so much as a shop, cafe, or pub (that was open) and just a few houses.

I’m guessing this relatively remote location made the castle a perfect place to store ammunition which was its primary function from 1870 up until WWI. It was also a minor military barracks, but its primary purpose (other than defense was as a prison. The castle itself has a very rugged and one could argue grim appearance (nothing like picturesque Urquhart or Castle Campbell), but you can see a natural beauty there as well in the way it rises out of landscape.

At the time Blackness Castle was built Linlithgow was the primary royal residence and Blackness was the primary port – the castle was built by the Crichton’s but soon passed to James II. Fortifications were added in the mid 16th century making it one of the most advanced artillery forts in Scotland, but that didn’t prevent it from falling to Cromwell’s army a century later.

It was recently used during filming for the movie Doomsday.

Travelling around the countryside is not so easy when you don’t have a car, I managed to get the train to Linlithgow and a bus from there to Blackness. Unfortunately there are only four buses a day that go Blackness so rather than wait around for another 2.5 hours in a village with no pub or cafe I walked back to Bo’Ness  along the shore route to catch a bus from there – its nice to feel like you have the time to take an impromptu 90 minute hike, especially since it did get me home an hour sooner.

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Apr 10 2012
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Food

Foraging at the Edinburgh Botanical Garden

As part of the Edinburgh Science Festival, Aarti and I went to a foraging workshop and breakfast this past weekend – completely her idea but I enjoyed it immensely.

Originally, I was not so keen on having such an early start on a Saturday morning, but as I started to wake up a bit more I began to get more into it. The event was at the Edinburgh Botanical Garden. A foraging expert and a local botanist toured us around while pointing out edible plants along the way and giving us some pointers about how to identify them in the wild and also how you’d prepare some of these things in your own kitchen.

I guess the event was pretty popular because there were more than 60 people there by my count. They broke it up into two groups to make the logistics a bit easier.

The forager who showed our group around was named Miles Irving, he’s the author of A Foragers Handbook and has supplied some London restaurants with foraged food.

I was interested to hear him explain about how much of his plant knowledge is self taught.  I don’t have much experience with botany, but I think it would be difficult to learn so much of that on your own – especially since misidentifying something could make you really sick. There was a botanist also who seemed to know the Botanics really well; he also knew the latin names for most everything which was slightly intimidating but I felt like we were in good hands.

I don’t think I’d want to forage for all of my meals, but you can see that there are some definite health benefits to such a lifestyle. I find it very easy to recognize that foragers consume a far greater variety of nutrients and have a more protein rich diet than the average person.

A lot of that local plant knowledge is a mystery, and its refreshing to see a few people trying to reintroduce us to those foods that were a dietary staple for such a long time but had been largely forgotten since we all started going to Tesco’s.

Probably the most memorable thing was the birch tree which had been tapped a couple days before the event. Apparently, there is only a few weeks out of the year when you can tap one (usually end of March, early April) but during that time they can produce huge quantities of sap. I can’t remember exactly what they planned to make with it, but I think they said the plan was to make syrup or honey or something like that.  I remember a couple Maple Syrup commercials that showed them tapping the Maple trees in Quebec, but I never realized there was such a small window of time for this to happen.

The breakfast that followed was really nice but Aarti and I felt a little bit jipped because they ran out of muffins before we got to the buffet. They had these venison sausages from a butcher in Portobello that were incredible and there was also porridge served with wild berries, an egg pot with mushrooms and some special potato cake with herbs. All made at least partially with foraged ingredients.

 

 

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Apr 09 2012
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edinburgh

Oddfellows Hall – Edinburgh

I often walk by this building on my way to the gym in Quartermile, and was a little perplexed by the strange, but incredibly detailed carving that stands out even in a city known for fine masonry. Plus, the name was begging for a more exhaustive Google search to quench my curiousity.

Of course there are fraternal societies in Canada that I am a little aware of,  but I never really understood their meaning growing up and was put off by the occasional pomp and ceremony.

I now know that term Oddfellows comes from medieval times and the modern group developed from early guilds: in small communities men coming from an ‘odd’ assortment of trades would form these societies for an early form of social support. Members would lend a helping hand to each other in times of sickness or financial hardship.

Normally, guilds were made up of the apprentices (trainees), journeymen or fellows (wage earners), and masters (owners/managers). However, fellows and apprentices were marginalized under this system. Masters would make special uniforms a prerequisite for attending meetings and set up other regulations to keep the lower orders from being active in the guild. In response, apprentices and fellows set up yeoman guilds  to counter the influence of the masters.  These gatherings of working people were a precursor to the modern day labour movement and caused substantial concern among those in government. These organizations were even illegal for a long time.

Oddfellows Hall / Malones Irish Pub

Oddfellows Hall was converted to a pub which is now Malone’s Bar on Forrest Road near Edinburgh University. This area is a hub for some extremely odd but very entertaining folk during the Edinburgh Festival.

There was a big remodel a few years before I moved here, but I found some excellent photos on this architecture blog.

Its a pretty good pub to hear some live music or watch a big rugby or football match since there is a lot of space. Not surprising because of its convenient location, university students are the primary patrons nowadays. The Oddfellows are still around but the only branch left in Scotland is over in Kilmarnock.  I suppose there wasn’t as much demand for these fraternities after the 1960’s as government took over more social welfare responsibilities and trade unions grew, membership in these organizations shrank. Still, it was nice to read up on their history and take a closer look at such an interesting Edinburgh building.

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