Caiplie House Goings On

We had a great trip to The Big Tent Festival at the weekend. Our local festival in Fife. Great music, superb food and the beer from The Black Isle Brewery was OK too!

We had a wonderful weekend,all your senses are activated at this festival. On Sunday that extra sense kicked in too….

Fiona is in training for the Loch Ness Marathon (more about running soon) so she is dragging me out on some of the runs. We had a sticky but enjoyable run up into The Lomonds and were trotting back into Falkland, salivating at the thought of a Puddledubler for brunch!

We heard a fellow runner coming up quick behind and an old fella and his dog appeared. The smiling collie danced along, tongue hanging out with pure pleasure and his lean owner slowed to our pace for a chat. It turns out Bob owns the fiddle shop in Falkland; buying, selling repairing. Bob has done that run or similar every day for 33 years! It was hard to tell if he was 53 or 73!!
Anyway we got to chatting about the festival and the music. Bob casually dropped in to conversation, in the nicest possible way, that Rosanne Cash was popping in to the shop on Monday and oh yeah he had met her dad too!

Well this was confirmed to us in the best possible way as an emotional Rosanne waved to Bob, standing beside us in the crowd, and gave him a mention. The Cash fans buzzed around him asking if he could pass a book on to be signed, showing him letters received from Johnny researching his family history.
Rosanne sang as if she was singing to a crowd full of friends, the sun shone and we felt, well something!

The Crail Festival kicked off yesterday with a BANG!

There was a great turnout for the fair that makes up the opening event. King Robert The Bruce came along to present the Royal Charter to Crail as he did 700 years ago. He looks pretty good for his age!

The party went on afterwards with AlbannachThe perfect band for an event like this. Drumming, Piping and dancing

I helped out at the food stall. Graham and Edna from The Honeypot in Crail were offering some great burgers, chilli and curry.

I went for some classic Crail dishes; crab, lobster and smoked haddock chowder. Seemed to go down well!

So it was true!! Tigers Wood was in Crail. Chilling out after The Open he popped in to Caiplie this morning for coffee and a chat!

Now where is the rest of that golf bag?

We have been hearing stories that Tigers Wood is staying in Crail during his time in Fife.

Could it be true? Maybe he will pop in to Caiplie for dinner??

As we plan another trip to Denholm I need to report on my last trip.
It seems my articles this summer are based on places to visit outwith Fife so I will continue the theme…

We went down to Denholm for Fiona’s birthday weekend which happens to coincide with the Common Riding season; Hawick’s Common-Riding celebrates both the capture of an English Flag in 1514 by the youth of Hawick at a place called Hornshole and the ancient custom of riding the marches or boundaries of the common land.

We hung out on Denholm green, packed with groups of friends from the surrounding area, eating, drinking and as it happened enjoying the blazing sunshine!

This is a new festival to me and the importance to the local community had pretty much passed me by. What a great occasion with the crowds cheering and two hundred horses coming round the village green. I was amazed to see the crowd was pretty much totally locals with few if any tourists. As a country we market the Highland Games, a slightly manufactured, tourist friendly event. However in the Common Riding events we have vibrant, historic events, properly rooted in the local communities.

If all you do is sit on the green and cheer I urge you to go and take part. Just be wary of invites to drink rum and milk from dawn