Pitlochry Highland Games

On Saturday September 10th (my birthday) we headed 2 hours away to the Pitlochry Highland Games. Highland Games are events held throughout the year in Scotland as a way of celebrating Scottish culture and heritage. At a traditional Highland Games, you will find most men in kilts and see lots of bagpipes. The Pitlochry Highland Games started in 1852. The highland games themselves date back to the 4th or 5th centuries. These games consist of Heavyweight events (Putting the Stone, Throwing the Hammer, Tossing the Caber, Throwing the weight for Distance and Throwing the Weight over the Bar), Track and Field Events (Tug ofWar, Cycling, Races, Long Jump), Highland Dancing, and a Pipe Band Parade and Pipe Band Contests.

Ralia Hunt

(by Jon)

The weekend of Sept 3rd, I had the opportunity to attend a partridge shoot at Ralia Estate.  This estate is located outside of Newtonmore and is roughly 22,000 acres in size.  Ralia Estate is located along the beautiful River Spey in the Cairngorm National Park.

I was invited by Andreas Nagel, who I met through some mutual acquaintances.   We arrived to the lodge on a Friday afternoon late.   We immediately put on our hunting clothes and headed off for an evening duck shoot.  I was situated on a beautiful pond up in the highlands at dusk.   The duck shoot was a lot of fun and I ended up with 8 birds in a short time while watching the sun disappear.   This was also my first hunt with a new 12 bore shotgun I purchased here in Aberdeen.   Its a Browning 5.25 Heritage Hunter and I was pleased with how the gun handled.

We returned to the lodge that evening for dinner, drinks, and some good comraderie.   There was an impressive list of oil and gas executives and other successful businessman.  One of which was a nice gentlemen by the name of Tom Griffin who previously owned the Minnie Estate just north of Aberdeen.   This is the estate Donald Trump purchased to build his world class links golf course and hotel which is currently under construction and estimated to be a 750 million pound investment.  It quickly became late and we were off to bed in order to rest up for Saturday's partridge shoot which was estimated to be a 350 bird day.

Saturday morning came quickly and we had a nice Scottish breakfast before heading out to the country for some driven partridge.  The birds didn't disappoint and we had no problem achieving our target of 350 birds.   It took our group five drives to reach our target bird count.   We had great weather for most of the hunt, with sunshine and relatively warm weather (approximately 17 degrees Celsius) for most of the hunt.  After the hunt, we gathered back at the lodge to wish everyone safe travels home.  Most of the participants were headed back to Aberdeen, approximately a 2.5 hour drive.   Others were carrying on to Skibo Castle to grouse hunt the following day.  

I really enjoy the opportunity to participate in these shooting opportunities in Scotland.   It's a wonderful way to see some really beautiful country and enjoy time in the outdoors which is something we all miss since moving from Texas.   It's also a great way to network and meet other colleagues in the Oil and Gas industry here in Aberdeen.   I have a few more shoots scheduled over the next few months and look forward to them.  

Aberdeen Football Club Game...they WON!!

On August 20, a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, we went with the Hollis family to one of the Aberdeen Football Club's football games (soccer.) We loved watching the game and it was fun to see the crowd at a Football game here. We did sit in the family section, pretty close to the field, and it was still pretty rowdy!! Stadium food was quite different here. They were selling coffee, hot chocolate, cokes, crisps, candy, and small steak pies. The boys were very excited to watch the game, and the home team won their first game this season!! They played the Inverness Caledonian Thistle and AFC won 2-1.

Hoodles Playbarn

I've been a little behind with blogging, but wanted to share our fun time at Hoodles Playbarn in Oldmeldrum (Outside Aberdeen). On a sunny day in August we met our friends Dana, Lex and Rye at Hoodles for some afternoon fun. The boys all loved running around on the bounce bubble, pedal go-karts, football pitch, basket swing, trampolines, hay stack and grass sledges!! A full 4 hours of fun.

Glamis Castle

A couple weekends ago we visited Glamis Castle, which is about a 1 hour drive from Aberdeen. I loved this one, so Magestic!! We had a great 50 minute tour in which we were told of a ghost still living in the castle. It has been the family home of the Earls of Strathmore since 1372.  It has close connections with the present Royal Family, being the childhood home of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It is the setting for Shakespeare's Macbeth and is referred to here: "Glamis thou art" "and yet woulds't wrongly win: thou'dst have great Glamis". It is popularly believed that Duncan was murdered here by Macbeth.

Highland Cows