Largs Viking Festival

On Saturday, the annual Largs Viking Festival kicked off.  As we'd never been before, we decided to go along and check out the opening parade.

Vikings in the main street of Largs

Giant Viking at the Viking Village on the seafront

Some beer I picked up from the food tent 

(It would have been rude not to)

Me, ready to defend Largs from the Viking hordes

All that defending Largs is tiring.  Time for a wee sit down

The fair maiden, rescued from the Vikings.

There were lots of things happening on the sidelines.  There was a rubber duck race in the local burn, a drumming group playing, pipe bands, lots of bikers on Harley's, trikes and Goldwings.  Then there was the Viking village and the Scots village, the food, drink and crafts stalls, the birds of prey, the list goes on.

It culminates after a week with the burning of a longship.  I'd love to be there for that, but we have a ceilidh to go to.  Ah well, there's always next year.

Thoughts on last weekend's karate course

The karate course last weekend in Largs went really well.  It was taught by 77 year old aikido master, Kato Sensei, so it was a bit different to what we usually practice.  We started on the Friday at lunchtime, and finished Sunday lunchtime, with 5 practices spread over the three days.

Prior to the course, I'd seen a clip on youtube of him doing a demonstration in a park in Paris, and to be honest, it looked.....rehearsed.  Boy was I in for a shock!  After starting out with being shown how to fall safely, we were into the first lesson.  It very quickly became obvious that the only reason the video looked staged, was because the people he was doing the techniques on knew how to fall/roll to avoid injury, and if you didn't, well you would soon know about it.  Basically, falling/rolling was the only way to make the pain stop!  It's incredible.  There's minimal movement from the person being attacked, but it can cause an incredible amount of pain.  We realised in a matter of minutes, that this stuff not only works, but is really effective.

There were some techniques, where we practiced with weapons (jo and bokken), then, without the weapons, but keeping the movements the same as we had when holding the weapons.  It was a really effective way of learning where to position hands, and what steps and body movements we were to do.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend in the company of a great bunch of people from all over the country, and an opportunity to learn from a master.

Looking forward to the weekend

I've got a karate course to go to in Largs this weekend.  Kicks off at 4.00pm on Friday, so I'll be heading down on the 12:45 train, to get there in plenty of time.  Before that however, I've got a float booked for first thing in the morning, so I should be really chilled and calm for the start of the course.  No doubt, my calm will be over within about half an hour of the course starting :-)

There's two practices on the Friday, four on the Saturday (followed by a celebration meal) and two on the Sunday morning.  It all winds up about lunchtime on Sunday, when I'll head into Largs for a curry.  I've taken the Monday off work to recover.

Really looking forward to it.

Wee hillwalk

Today we took a trip to Muirshiel Park near Largs.  It's a country park with quite a few signposted walks, including one up a hill called Windy Hill.  We opted for Windy Hill, as from the visitor centre it looked like there was a trig pillar at the top.  Turned out it was a cairn and not a trig, but it was a good wee walk with a nice view at the top.

Once we got back down, we headed into Largs for a curry at the Star of India, which I can recommend.  They do a really nice set meal for £6.95.

Cairn at the top of Windy Hill, Muirshiel Park

Great views on a blustery day

Yesterday, we took a  wee trip down to Largs, to climb the hill at the back of Douglas Park.  I had hoped there would be a trig pillar at the top - more on this later.

It was a nice sunny day, with a bit of a wind.  At the top, the wind got wilder, as we got more exposed.  But I'm gettin ahead of myself.  First, there's the neolithic burial chamber at the bottom of the hill.

The chamber dates from about 3000 bc, and is along a wee track, behind some houses at the side of the park.

After the burial chamber, it was time to get ourselves up the hill.  It's a reasonably well maintained path, and there's even some benches at various points on the way up, where you can get a decent view.

At the top there wasn't a trig pillar, but there was a bit of OS furniture.  I'd no idea what this was, but a friend who's trig obsessed, informs me it counts and you can bag it.  Here's Karen using it to avoid being blown off the hill.

There was also a wee cairn, which we sat at for ten minutes for a coffee before heading back down.

Finally, here's the view over Largs from the top of the hill.

Back at sea level, we walked back into town and had a curry before driving back  to Glasgow.

New books

Picked up some new books recently.  In a charity shop in Troon I snagged a copy of Whit by Ian Banks (sans M), in Largs - again in a charity shop - I got a copy of Sahara by Michael Palin, and this morning, thanks to a promotion by SFX magazine and Waterstones, I got a free copy of House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds.

The last one is a result and a half, as I really like his books, and am currently reading Absolution Gap, the last book in his Revelation Space trilogy.

If you haven't read any of his books, the Revelation Space books are fantastic.  It's an epic space opera like no other I've read.  When you've got a physicist writing sf though, it should be pretty damn good.