High jinks at the Highland Games!

On Sunday past, it is no jest

It was, indeed, the best Scots Fest

Ooch aye the noo, through hail and rain. 

When shall we three meet again?

Hmm.  Right.  OK - I don't think I'll give up the day job any time soon and make a new career for myself as a poet but, despite the crappy verse, Mumsie and I had an absolutely kick-ass time at the Chicago Scots Highland Games last weekend!   I'd just flown in from Zurich the day before, perfectly timed to allow us to attend this celebration of Scottishness, this carnival of Celts!  I remember (albeit a bit hazily) the absolutely amazing time I had on the Queen Mary a year or so ago, when I happened to stumble (figuratively - and later on, literally) across a Scots Band Piping contest during the weekend I'd happened to choose to stay there.   The sheer breathless excitement - and physicality - of listening to all those amazing pipes and drums in close quarters has stayed with me so when I saw this listing in my "What To Do With A Mumsie In Chicago" magazine, I knew we just HAD to go.

Down, boy.  Me showing the furry
 cow who's the boss

The festival was being held over 2 days in a town about an hour's drive from Evanston, a place called Itasca.  (I always want to pronounce it as Ithaca in my mind - dunno why, its just the way it is).  Anyway, given I was likely to be a bit jet lagged, I'd also booked us into the Westin at Itasca for the evening, so I wouldn't have to drive back that evening.  I'd gotten the room free with Westin Points (one of the perks of traveling so much for work) so that was good and - as the day unfolded - it turned out to be a very prescient decision!!!  If you want to check out the full schedule of events (or are planning a trip this way next year..), here's the link to the Chicago Scots website: http://www.chicagoscots.org/highlandgames/ 

Because I happen to be a sucker, I am also now a proud member of said esteemed society, on account of deciding to be "nice" and give the 2 young people flogging memberships at the entrance gate a good start to their day by signing up (bloody hell, that makes me sound old).  It was only $25 to join and it did entitle me to a free scone later on, so I think it was well worth it.  Plus its also handy for future blogging opportunities too (hellooooooo Burns Night!) so I did it for you guys…. The fact that chaps in kilts can be quite sexy had nothing to do with it.  Nope.  No sirreee.  Nothing whatsoever.   (though, to be fair, by the end of the day we had seen quite the..umm.. spectrum in the Kilt Cuteness stakes)

I'm ready for my close-up...

Anyhoo, we were attending the festival on the second day, when such crowd pleasers as the knobbly knees contest, the haggis eating competition and the haggis hurling competition were being held.  All promised giddy heights of excitement and tension, so we were very much looking forward to everything.  The program of events was actually pretty full with at least 2 or 3 things happening at the same time - at times, it felt like I was at some kind of Scottish conference, as we juggled our agenda and itinerary "Well,.. its 2pm, so we have the intermediate Highland Dancing on the North Stage or the 30lb Sheaf Toss on the Heavy Athletic field - but then Rugby Sevens tournament starts at 2.15pm and the second qualifying round of the Pipe Bands starts at 2.30pm!  What shall we do???"  

Well, we started off, like all good adventures do, at the obvious, prime place.  

The Food Court.  

Oh my. 

What a gloriously Scottish food court it was.  Chock full of trucks selling all manner of superbly unhealthy and tasty items - not a salad item or low-fat treat in sight.  Instead we had our choice of vendors of pies, pasties, haggis, pies, fish and chips, cakes, shepherd's pie, proper bangers and bacon butties, more cakery-bakery, fruit scones, pies and more chips.  It was bloody marvelous.  We started off splitting a portion of haggis and chips (laden with enough salt to start a new spice route to Tibet) which was DELISH (as long as you don't think about it too much) and then chowing down on the Full Monty - a sandwich with REAL british bangers and bacon from this chap who has a British food store in Chicago!  HUZZAH!!!  Finally!  My pukka replacement for Tea and Sympathy in the West Village!!  Now I can get my salad cream and choccy at World Market, and my sausages and cottage pie at Spencer's Jolly Posh store.  http://www.jollyposh.com  *happy sigh* 

It promised to be a thrilling afternoon

After our initial thirst for fried goods and fat were slaked, we headed over to the Heavy Athletic field where the first event of the day was the tossing of the Clachnert - basically how far you can throw a 16lb river stone.  There were about 10 male competitors who, as it turned out, competed in all the events of a similar throw-ey type nature.  While it was obviously terribly impressive from an athletic "crikey, thats quite heavy and you can chuck it quite far" perspective, as a spectator sport, it didn't quite kick in, really, in terms of dramatic tension.  I discovered my threshold for watching hairy men throw a big rock in a muddy field was about eleven minutes.  It was, indeed, an amazing journey of self-discovery.

After we'd finished Rocking out, we wandered off to see a few dogs running round hoops and failing to weave in and out of poles as requested by their handlers, much to their chagrin.  One dog had been dyed in a pretty spectacular fashion, the others were bouncing around excitedly - it was exhausting just to watch!  We watched that for…oh… eleven minutes or so, and then wandered off to see something else - this time the rugby tournament that was underway.  We'd bought one of my picnic blankets (my fancy pants Veuve Clicquot one, of course), so we lay that down by the sidelines and sat down to watch the game.  By this stage it was coming up for midday, so it was bloody hot!!  And, given we didn't have any shade, I'd say we sat and watched the match for… ohh… about eleven minutes.  By this stage, we realized we were suffering from Festival-Induced ADD and - as everyone knows - the only known cure for that was - Scottish cakes and pastries!!  Guaranteed to knock you into a calorie-induced coma that will quiet even the most fidgety of folk and keep you rooted, soporifically, in the same place for at least an hour while you digest.  

We overachieved.  

Hello, Eccles cakes, lemon shortbread and a brick of a bread pudding thing that seemed genuinely made of brick, given the heft of it!  Fortunately - by a miracle of planning - my phone's battery was about to die - so that meant that a trip to the car and a Nice Long Sit-Down was in order, while I plugged my phone in and waited for it to charge.  Coincided nicely with Bakery Bingo and so we spent a very pleasant hour, in the car with the windows down, listening to the pipes and drum bands playing, while alternately eating our body weight in sugar with then dozing it off.  Perfection.  

Alas our calorie coma meant that we simply couldn't be arsed to move to rouse ourselves to go watch the haggis eating or haggis hurling competition.  We figured we could probably imagine it well enough - besides, we were involved in our own Carbo Death Match, so we had our own battles to fight.

The Classic Scottish car picnic

Anyway, after about an hour or so (it might have been longer - i drifted off), the phone was finally ready to spring back into video-action, and we headed back from the carpark (just a short walk from the entrance) back to the grounds, in time for the grand finale of the Mass Band at 6pm.  From midday to about 5pm, all the bands had been competing in various types of competitions (who can blow the hardest, who has the craziest bag pattern, who is actually blowing into a weasel and just hasn't been spotted yet.. that kinda thing).  However, the Mass Band was to be the highlight of the whole 2 day festival - where all the bands come together and you have 1,000 pipers and drummers playing together!  Just imagine how incredible that was going to be!

Well, we ended up having to imagine it too.  Because, just after 5pm, as the last of the individual competitions wrapped up, we noticed that the sky overhead had suddenly become very ominous looking.  Almost out of nowhere, the sky above had taken on a Mr.Stay Puft in Ghostbusters look, dark and brooding and looking for trouble.  We crossed our fingers and atheistically prayed for the weather to hold….. but alas.  At about 5.15pm, the heavens simply opened and we were suddenly running for cover from an torrential thunderstorm!  We learned later on that there had actually also been tornado warnings issued - fortunately we didn't know that as we were huddling for shelter under the previously-packed whiskey tent!  

And that is how the day ended, alas.  After about 15 mins of sheltering from the rain, it became clear it wasn't going to stop any time soon, so we just thought "sod it" and make a squelchy dash for the car park.  And this is where fortune favored the (scots) brave, as the hotel that i had booked for us was a mere 2 mins drive away, so instead of dealing with the insane weather on the roads, instead we dealt with the insane weather with a nice glass of wine and supper in the hotel restaurant.  A very civilized ending to what had been a very enjoyable day.  

Here are some more pics and some videos from the day - enjoy!!

Awww….steak in training. 

Mumsie making new friends

Scone with strawberries and a whole cow's worth of
cream. AND we got another one of these for FREE!!
Yey for being a member!

Adorable little Highland Dancers in training… though I suspect
their ranks will be one fewer this time next year….. 

"Do you have a flag?"

Dodgy geezers lining up for the knobbly knees competition….

Umm…tossing the Sheaf, anyone?

Its lonely at the top!  Judging the Highland Dancing..
Is that enormous table strictly necessary, love?

Guess which tent this was?
Yep… the whiskey tasting tent! 

Oh my… pies!!

Shepherd's Pie Pie.  Bloody bloody lovely lovely.

Gathering of the clans

Err.. not sure this lot got the memo about Tartan…. 

Great Scot! 

Finally.  A creature that suffers worse
Bad Hair Days than I do...

Seriously??  Wearing a baseball cap on backwards
while in full tartan regalia should NOT be allowed!!!

Beep beep!  Drooling at the vintage car show...

Beautiful car.
Damn shame it was all broken.

My future car.

Reservoir Scots

It was all going so well… and then this…..