Thursday October 31 2002 at 01:53 GMT
Last weekend really deserves a good write-up, if nothing more than for my own personal memories.
Thursday
Yes, perhaps a little early to start a normal weekend, but this is where it all kicked off. I worked late, then met Jams, John, Rich, Pete and Christie for some last minute planning and a few beers. Somehow, it turned into a 3-in-the-morning-working-next-day event.
Friday
Friday morning rolled around way too quickly for my liking, but somehow I struggled out of bed, packed my bag and got to work. 1pm soon rolled round, and I packed my flaptop up and headed to meet everyone up. Christie and Jams' mom headed off in one car, with Rich and I travelling with Jams. We got some essentials en route - video tape, a DV camera - and all got to the house. The house was pretty mighty indeed - about five miles from Blairgowrie. We had been told it was 'isolated', however as we arrived there, it became apparent that a gamekeeper who organised shoots stayed here too. As it turned out, they were pretty relaxed. Jams' mom stayed for dinner on Friday, and we then sat in the big living room and chatted, over a few beers, until about midnight. Chatted may be somewhat of a generous view - Jams came up with 'free-form rambling' as a more apt tag.
Friday pictures are here.
Saturday
We all woke pretty early on Saturday (like 10am) and grabbed some breakfast then headed off for a good walk. The weather really was great - blue skies with a reasonably light wind.. Everyone else pitched up at lunchtime, just as Rich and Christie were getting the food fired up (mighty open-toasted sandwiches). We unloaded the van (AKA Battle Bus, apparently). Jams, Rich, Pete and Al then got busy with setting up the fireworks for the evening display. I'm not entirely sure how long this took, but I think it was something in the order of four or five hours, using over 500metres of cable for the electronic firing system. The fireworks had come from a variety of sources, including from the guy who handles the Tattoo fireworks and Murrayfield. :-D My job was to get the wireless network running and get the Internet connection set up, get the tunes going (MP3 - my friend!) and then select some music to play with the fireworks. As a side note, you truly would not have believed the amount of kit we had with us - practically anything could have happened, and we had the kit to work/fight it. I realised my cable taking music to the hifi had a broken connection, so Rich got a soldering iron and repaired it for me. Word to that style!
Saturday evening was to be the main evening of the weekend. Dinner was warming in the oven, so we took our Champagne outside, pointed the speakers out the window (I selected The Great Gate of Kiev from Musorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (one of my favourite pieces of music in the world)) and watched for over 20 minutes as mad fireworks shot into the air. Truly excellent!
We then retired to the dining room and ate superbly (chicken-o-rama) then on to the sitting room where we just took it easy and enjoyed a few beers. Somewhere about 7am, we called it a day...
Saturday pictures are here.
Sunday
Most people awoke feeling slightly woolly, but not too bad on Sunday morning. Rich was already busy in the kitchen when I awoke and Russian Shandies (Stella and Smirnoff, served in a Stella glass) were soon the order of the day. A few of us took a march down the road and over some hills after lunch, whilst the debris from the previous night was cleared from the garden.
Dinner was, once again, mighty - Rich prepared a HUGE Bolgnese sauce and I did my best at eating it all. We also took a decision to stay for Monday night, which was almost our downfall... Sunday night also saw us attempt to get some of the fireworks that didn't fire to go - I love this picture of Jams test firing some aerosol.
Sunday pictures are here.
Monday
On Monday Pete set up a death slide across the garden - good fun indeed. The helmetCam was then constructed and Rich got an amusing run with that thing on his head! On Monday night, we went for a walk in the dark - great fun indeed when there are absolutely no light sources around (apart from the moon...).
We all put our feet up by the fire and played some cards and drank some beer - quite a lot in fact - we managed to finish off all 240 bottles! Can sponsorship from Stella really be that far away? Somehow 6.30am came round WAY too early and I dived into bed for a few minutes of sleep before we headed back to Edinburgh and real life again...
Monday pictures are here.
The whole weekend really was excellent fun and I really want to do it again, although the amount of effort and planning that went in really was huge. Thanks are due to:
Thursday
Yes, perhaps a little early to start a normal weekend, but this is where it all kicked off. I worked late, then met Jams, John, Rich, Pete and Christie for some last minute planning and a few beers. Somehow, it turned into a 3-in-the-morning-working-next-day event.
Friday
Friday morning rolled around way too quickly for my liking, but somehow I struggled out of bed, packed my bag and got to work. 1pm soon rolled round, and I packed my flaptop up and headed to meet everyone up. Christie and Jams' mom headed off in one car, with Rich and I travelling with Jams. We got some essentials en route - video tape, a DV camera - and all got to the house. The house was pretty mighty indeed - about five miles from Blairgowrie. We had been told it was 'isolated', however as we arrived there, it became apparent that a gamekeeper who organised shoots stayed here too. As it turned out, they were pretty relaxed. Jams' mom stayed for dinner on Friday, and we then sat in the big living room and chatted, over a few beers, until about midnight. Chatted may be somewhat of a generous view - Jams came up with 'free-form rambling' as a more apt tag.
Friday pictures are here.
Saturday
We all woke pretty early on Saturday (like 10am) and grabbed some breakfast then headed off for a good walk. The weather really was great - blue skies with a reasonably light wind.. Everyone else pitched up at lunchtime, just as Rich and Christie were getting the food fired up (mighty open-toasted sandwiches). We unloaded the van (AKA Battle Bus, apparently). Jams, Rich, Pete and Al then got busy with setting up the fireworks for the evening display. I'm not entirely sure how long this took, but I think it was something in the order of four or five hours, using over 500metres of cable for the electronic firing system. The fireworks had come from a variety of sources, including from the guy who handles the Tattoo fireworks and Murrayfield. :-D My job was to get the wireless network running and get the Internet connection set up, get the tunes going (MP3 - my friend!) and then select some music to play with the fireworks. As a side note, you truly would not have believed the amount of kit we had with us - practically anything could have happened, and we had the kit to work/fight it. I realised my cable taking music to the hifi had a broken connection, so Rich got a soldering iron and repaired it for me. Word to that style!
Saturday evening was to be the main evening of the weekend. Dinner was warming in the oven, so we took our Champagne outside, pointed the speakers out the window (I selected The Great Gate of Kiev from Musorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (one of my favourite pieces of music in the world)) and watched for over 20 minutes as mad fireworks shot into the air. Truly excellent!
We then retired to the dining room and ate superbly (chicken-o-rama) then on to the sitting room where we just took it easy and enjoyed a few beers. Somewhere about 7am, we called it a day...
Saturday pictures are here.
Sunday
Most people awoke feeling slightly woolly, but not too bad on Sunday morning. Rich was already busy in the kitchen when I awoke and Russian Shandies (Stella and Smirnoff, served in a Stella glass) were soon the order of the day. A few of us took a march down the road and over some hills after lunch, whilst the debris from the previous night was cleared from the garden.
Dinner was, once again, mighty - Rich prepared a HUGE Bolgnese sauce and I did my best at eating it all. We also took a decision to stay for Monday night, which was almost our downfall... Sunday night also saw us attempt to get some of the fireworks that didn't fire to go - I love this picture of Jams test firing some aerosol.
Sunday pictures are here.
Monday
On Monday Pete set up a death slide across the garden - good fun indeed. The helmetCam was then constructed and Rich got an amusing run with that thing on his head! On Monday night, we went for a walk in the dark - great fun indeed when there are absolutely no light sources around (apart from the moon...).
We all put our feet up by the fire and played some cards and drank some beer - quite a lot in fact - we managed to finish off all 240 bottles! Can sponsorship from Stella really be that far away? Somehow 6.30am came round WAY too early and I dived into bed for a few minutes of sleep before we headed back to Edinburgh and real life again...
Monday pictures are here.
The whole weekend really was excellent fun and I really want to do it again, although the amount of effort and planning that went in really was huge. Thanks are due to:
- Christie - for organising the house and overall planning
- Rich - for keeping the kitchen in order and rocking down with the food
- Jams, Pete, Rich and Al - for quality firework detail
- Jams - for having a birthday
Comments
![[Valid RSS]](http://martinlittle.com/gallery/2003/random/small/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
Powered by
thinkthin
