Scotland 2019: Six Hundred Cinderellas
Our last day in Scotland could have been split into a week itself. Time stops for no one! So we got up nice and early for a spectacular breakfast at the Cottage Kitchen. Its a tiny establishment, our family of 5 barely fit in the corner. I'm not a food photographer but I had to save these snaps. Look at those tomatoes!
Since Charlotte didn't make it out of town all week, we decided we needed another excursion. We smushed back into the car and drove over to Kellie Castle!
It was beautiful and sunny, and I think there was some kind of festival going on in a nearby meadow but we never found out what for.
We started with a tour of the inside. Then we gave ourselves a tour of the outside!
The gardens were so much fun to wander around. There were so many secret hideaways tucked behind all the trees and flower bushes.
Eventually we made our way back to the front of the castle and found a tea shop for a quick snack. Feeling refreshed we joined everyone else on the lawn for a concert from a small orchestra that had appeared. We think it must have had something to do with the mysterious festival, but whatever it was we thoroughly enjoyed it!
When we'd had enough of the music and people, we raced back to our little flat to start prepping for the main event- the Grad Ball!
Back to St. Andrews!
We made a bit of a mess in our room, did each others' hair, borrowed each others' eyelash curlers, and generally had a good time! Dad brought in some take-out fish n' chips from a local shop and we polished that off in record time, giggling while we licked our fingers clean and tried not to get grease on our gowns.
It was a little misty outside, some pre-rain weather, but we shuffled into the car and sped off like three Cinderellas!
We made a quick pitstop to collect some people before heading off to the same courtyard that held the garden parties all week. By then it was properly raining so we dashed between stone archways and columns trying to maintain all appearance of belonging. They checked us in through security and sent us inside where a ceilidh (kay-lee) dance was already in full swing!
In my American opinion, the ceilidh is the most fun because it's *real* dancing. You have a partner (or group, depending on the set) and there are set steps that the musicians will call out to you. I had to lose my shoes pretty quickly in order to keep up!
There was maybe an hour of that before the sun finally set and the lights got dimmer.
There was plenty of champagne, donuts, ice cream, and dancing until the early hours of the morning when we had to peel ourselves away from the chaos.
We made it home just before sunrise and caught a few minutes of sleep before we were up, throwing things into our suitcases and headed for the airport, pins still in our hair and ears ringing.
Until next time Scotland :)