How are you all? How have you been? Sorry I’ve not been around so much lately…had a wedding on June 21 (congrats George and Raymond!) in Edinburgh and we (me, hubby and the weans) trooped off to Stirlingshire on Saturday to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn!

Bannockburn Live weekend was a great event despite the long queues for everything but the toilets!! We arrived about 10am with half of Scotland it seemed. The queue to get in went back a good half a mile, but everyone was in good spirits so none of the stewards got hassled.

Anyway, we got in, went up to the stage to see who was playing. We stayed to listen to a band I never got the name of…sorry band, but you were good. We then went exploring…apart from craft stalls, there were also stalls from various clans and a whole host of quality food places…we ate buffalo burgers and they were excellent.

The whole event was held up at the Bannockburn visitor centre/monument/Bruce statue. One area was the band/clans/stalls/food and another (which you had to queue – quelle surprise! – to get into) was where the re-enactment was taking place and included a mediaeval tent village where Clanranald re-enactors were showing people how they made weapons and food and clothing etc. It was really good.

My favourite bit was the re-enactment of the battle itself. The guy narrating – an historian – was good with the banter and had the crowd cheering The Bruce and booing King Edward. It was a laugh. The costumes were excellent as was the information given out about the historic event. The narrator took us through the two day battle talking about all the skirmishes and explaining what happened when and what various things meant/how things worked (eg the Chiltern…below).

The kids had a ball. They loved it and went away with a tabard each (in the Bruce’s colours of course!) and a wooden sword (the girl) and wooden spear (the boy) respectively.  Anyway, we stayed about four hours and the rain started to get heavy so we went back to the car just as the heavens opened. Was an excellent day!

I got myself a hand thrown mug which looks like it wouldn’t take much tea in it, but is actually bigger than it looks (a bit like the Tardis!!).

Funniest part of the day – the actors forgot their mikes were still on. There were a few choice words from them when things when wrong (a horse got spooked, the rider swore much to the amusement of the crowd). The guy playing The Bruce also had a very interesting conversation about ‘where’s the wee lassie who has my car keys?’ which also got a lot of hoots from the crowd!!

It was a good weekend, thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but got some shots on my phone which then ran out of juice!! Hope you enjoyed the pics anyway.

The kids stopped for their summer holidays on Friday there, so I’m off for the next two weeks to look after them. Today, I’m just catching up with bits and pieces around the house. Been watching The Darling Buds of May and thoroughly enjoying it.

Anyway, I am going to go now and get on with the ironing! Oh the glamour!  Til next time!

Dawn xxx
PS if you’re interested in learning more about Bannockburn, BBC 2 did a great series called Quest for Bannockburn.