Wedding Troop at Loch Ness 3rs September 2011

Friday 2nd Sept found Ian and I waiting for Craig to arrive so we could pack up and ship out,  good job we had the Top Box on the car, without it we'd never had fit everything in! But we managed and off we set on our way to Inverness, a long drive ahead but with Craig's chatter and all the stories we had a great drive up, often mentioning Nigel on the way, lots of comments we know he have enjoyed, you know the type, 'I can fit it all in no problem' etc!! We stopped once along the way for a 'wee' break (when in Scotland) then we decided once we got near to Inverness that perhaps we'd not been in the car long enough, so set ourselves a mission to catch the Sunset over Loch Ness, so off we went chasing the sun as it went down over Urquhart Castle (sneaking in through the NO ENTRY gates) to get a few sneaky pics! Which I will attempt to add one now! here goes...

Breaking in!!!!

 Mission accomplished We're in and we got our Sunset.

Eventually we made it to our Hotel, a quick unpack, few texts exchanged with Louise (our bride) and we met both Louise and Ade (hubby to be) at the pub for a heads up of what's happening, I'll just go off on a tangent here and say ooooh the Snow Goose meals were out of this world, fantastic food!! We were all stuffed! Anyway, enough of the food, meeting Louise and Ade was great, a lovely couple who gave us their ideas of what they wanted us to do for the wedding, they gave us a little keyring Stormtroooper with a ribbon tied on with their names and wedding date on, love them, so kind and they're so cute :). Once we'd sorted out, off we all went for an early night....I don't think Louise slept much, we received Postcode by text at 1.30 in the morning.....

Saturday morning, bit of a lie in then a walk around town, we gave up the idea of catching the sunrise, can't imagine why! Inverness was lovely, warm and sunny as we wandered about, found a small Market where we ha a good mooch about, Craig got chatting to someone about religion, that was him lost for half an hour! After he totally confused the woman, we headed back to get out kit, time to Troop.....bit of a sticky moment at the traffic lights, TEN minutes we sat waiting!!!!!!! C'mon, don't they know we had a wedding to attend? We found the Hotel, tucked away and wow, how gorgeous it was, we were greeted by Ade, who introduced us as the other musicians who were playing later,...nobody knew were were going to be there, I loved it, fab idea! Ade showed us to our room where we were to get changed, bless, they let us use their Bridal Room to get ready, gorgeous room with the most amazing view, but no time to wait, we had to get ready, me in the Loo, trying to hide while putting facepaint on with two windows in there, had a major panic when the paint I use stained the sink, just don't ask me what I scrubbed it clean with!!!! 

Louise and Ade

Having got ready we sneaked down and waited outside the room the guests were in, Louise was very fashionably late, but we were entertained by a Hornet who decided to hang about oh er, he was a big un! Louise finally arrived and I have to say she was beautiful and amazingly she piped herself down the Aisle, wonderful! After their ceremony as they left that's when we were given our cue to go in and keep the guests in there, the reaction as we walked through the door was 'in Craig's words, Mega! They loved us, we did cause quite a stir, great fun and more so that a lot are Star Wars fans, we even had someone doing Wookie noise, brilliant...finally the guests were allowed to leave and that's when we got to mingle, fabulous friendly people, musicians were there playing and were fantastic too, then of course we had TARTAN TROOPER, Ian came down with a Kilt over his Stormie (courtesy of Louise and Ade) as if they didn't have enough to do, they took time out to bring a couple of kilts and a Busby (photo opportunities)....Some fun with the kilt as our Stormie was checked out under the Kilt to see if he was a true Scott, thank god for the undersuit  ;O). 

Checking the tackle!!

On his wandering to the next room with all the guys in, he was told his kilt was wrong way round so he was jiggled about and his sporran moved etc until he was suitably dressed in the correct way! After many photo's, which we were included in the wedding pics, great fun, it was time for everyone to eat, we were in a room with the photographer and his assistant,great sitting in purple facepaint in my civvies! Fabulous meal, just to make you all jealous, all 3 courses of fabulous wedding food and in fabulous surroundings, totally fantastic...

Later we were to be ready for 7.00 to greet the evening guests, again, all friendly and all loved us, plenty of photo opportunities, I have to say, John the photographer was great, he enjoyed taking photo's, I have a sneaky susupicion some were more for him than anyone else..soon is was time to lead the Bride and Groom onto the Dancefloor for their first dance of the evening, ahhh it was lovely, we stood guard 'menacingly' as they danced, then come the next song, harassed the guests to get them up too, many of whom did get up and then as I looked on the dancefloor, there is Craig and a kilted young man getting jiggy with it and oh dear, another one, Ian getting jiggy with our Groom!!!!! after he'd got jiggy with the bride tut tut, that's when our wookie wannabe grabbed me for a dance too, all on a little video which most of you will have seen...if you haven't, take a look, it's brilliant, it's on my Facebook page. After the dance and a bit more wandering it was time to leave, so half 9 we finished, back to Hotel to shower quickly and back to spend the night with the wedding party, we were invited back which was a lovely gesture and how many guests came up and said how wonderful we were and what a great day they'd had, I'd say the whole day was a resounding success, hence the length of this blog, I do apologise and top marks if you got this far!!! my butt is numb sitting here doing this I can tell you!... After our return we were treat to Stovies, none of us had every had Stovies, but we all enjoyed it, with some Oatcakes? (I think that's what they were) very hearty and warming, then it was time to get up and dance, Ceilidh style I think it was, Craig got up for this, as the band played, they danced, Ian and I got up to try a Jig too but the couple we paired with legged it so we missed that one, but never mind, all good fun,  and not a pop song in sight, our first experience of a Highland Wedding and I have to say, the best wedding I've ever been too and of course a MEGA troop at the same time......we loved it, the guests loved it and I do think Louise and Ade loved it too....phew, blog now over and out...

Nessie, we found him!!!

Actually no, it's not, well yes it is really, apart from our little visit next morning round Loch Ness to find Nessie, which we did,..not the real one of course, he was hiding I think! a few photo's of Loch Ness then headed home via Aviemore where we bought Haggis, now wondering what Craig's Emma did when Craig got his home! Mine is for Mark so he's having his tonight, oh and one more stop on the way home after seeing a sign for Ice cream, home made (farm made) 3 flavours in one tub and believe me when I say, it's a big tub, the girl says 'you'll only get a little of each'... A LITTLE? she's having a laugh? I think I skimmed half an inch off top of each before admitting defeat, Craig however managed to polish the whole lot off..way to go Craig!!  And there you go, finally home and exhausted but happy after an amazingly wonderful weekend Troop......thanks guys for being such fun and many thanks to the Bride and Groom, family, friends and Hotel Staff for their warm welcome.............

Marie, Ian and Craig ;) 

 

Catch up on past Troops

Catch up on past Troops

Apologies for the following short blogs...been too busy going here and there but here's a quick catch up...

16^th July

A couple of short catch ups (apologies for not being on the ball with these)

Sheffield at Crystal Peaks  – a fun troop, me craig n Nigel travel down in car, eventually after wandering the car park we found the centre, on dragging bags through the shops we found the escalators to which as we were going up, Nigel said ‘I’ve been dripped on by Crystal Peaks’…..much sniggering by me and Craig before we eventually found the shop, the staff I have to say were very welcoming, couldn’t do enough to help us, mind you, we weren’t too impressed with the stairs, nothing wrong as stairs go but my god there seemed a lot of them. I got ready on floor in front of mirror (paint to apply) while the others and staff got ready behind me, once we were all ready, come 11 we made our way out into the shop, we were well received by the people in the shop and of course out of it, it got very busy at one point, the mall was crowded, but all went well, we had sandwiches and drinks laid on by staff for our lunch (thanks to the staff for being on the ball) it was a busy day, lots of people, happy children and happy ‘big children’ !!!

All too soon though it was time to pack up and go, we all had a great time, as did the shoppers, I think they enjoyed us, I know the staff working out there did. Hopefully we’ll return someday, I’d like to say my memory was great, but it’s not, so this is short and sweet, I do though, remember that there was a lot of innuendo, all good fun stuff though and lots of laughter..fab day guys…

Hmm, I seem to have no photo's of this one!!! sorry peeps....

Rotary Club 30^th july

Well, this was a funny one, up in Blaydon in some Pub that I can’t remember the name of, when we finally found it, we weren’t sure what to think, but onwards and upwards, we met with Craig, Nigel, Claire and EvilBetty, we were shown to our ‘room’ the passage at the top of the pub stairs in their private quarters, but having asked for a mirror were shown to a bedroom which obviously belonged to the owners sons, I had my mirror which I put in front of window on the floor, but needed more light, on opening the curtain, one side of the pole came out of the wall and fell down!      I had to climb up and push the screw back in, this after getting Craig to sit on arm of chair I was on (so it wouldn’t tip) and cause more damage!...And anyway, after having the stairs cleared of bits and pieces, we finally managed to struggle down the stairs, through the pub and outside, much to the delight of the local children, we got some very strange looks, but all in all it was good fun, the guy across the road from the Pizza shop asked us over for photo’s and as usual we complied, never one to turn down a photo opportunity! After we stood around outside a while, getting people’s interest in the pub etc, it was time to wrap it all up and get changed, the staff were great, after getting changed it was all downstairs into the bar for a drink before leaving, oh and a dance of course (that was just me on my own though) complete with normal day to day clothes and still purple face! But what the heck. Maria from Rotary Club was very impressed with us and is wanting us to do more for them, which we look forward to.. yet again, a bit of a quickie, my brain can’t remember everything, must take a noteboo from now on….but great work everyone involved in this one…….

13th 14th August, Spaceport

The 99th Garrison was asked by Mersey Travel to support the Spaceport Centre in Liverpool at its Star Wars weekend on the 13th and 14th August 2011.  We agreed and invited another group along to assist called the Mint Imperials.  We had met them previously at the Star Wars Family Fun Day in Burnely in May

The event had been organised by the 99th's MLO [Paul] and through his involvement with the Walking With Giants Foundation, it had been arranged for members of the WWG Charity to come to the centre in the morning for a tour and a visit as part of their WWG annual convention.

This was great fun, Ian and I arrived on the Fri night at our Hotel where we later met up with Paul who was with the rest of the WWG people, we had a great night, friendly chat and some banter with one or two of the others.

Sat morning we met up with Paul who we followed through town over to Spaceport, thanks for that Paul, arriving at the car park it seemed we were locked out, Paul went off to find someone to unlock the barrier, only to find that it wasn't locked in the first place hehe, oh well, gave us a giggle ;O). Once inside we were shown to our changing room, bit of a mess once we were all in getting changed but was good to mix in with the others, then of course out we went all ready to troop and wow, what a busy day it turned out to be, I do believe they normally get 150 people through their doors on a Saturday, they got something like 800? Great for us and fab for Spaceport themselves, we went down a storm as did the 'How to be Jedi' talks, I missed out on that one, but from what I've heard they were tremendous fun, well done to Paul for those, and of course Craig. 

Keeping this short as I know Sue/Craig already done a blog, just wanted to say a big thanks to everyone who attended this, and sorry that we didn't get to troop the Sunday (due to the car break down) honestly, never a dull moment!!! But a successful weekend, well done everyone,.....

99^th Wedding at Whitworth Hall Country Park Hotel Spennymoor 18^th June

We were requested to do a wedding at Whitworth Hall for girl who’s husband to be is mad on Star Wars, it was to be a total surprise, here’s how the day panned out. Ian and I left for Spennymoor, having only one small detour after Sat Nav sent us into a closed off road, we should have had our Sat Nige in, sure he’d have managed! Eventually we got there, and shown into the Duncombe Suite! Ooohh poshest changing facilities I’ve been up to now,so we dumped our gear and headed outside into the grounds to wait for Craig and Nigel, who turned up in usual style, Nigel with head in his mobile, Craig giving us the sign as he drove up the long driveway, great stuff Craig! We were to be ready for 11 as the Groom was arrived for then, we did cause quite a stir when we finally were ready and outside, the Groom arrived and what a happy face he had on seeing us, he loved it, so after the usual ‘on the knee’s’ photo for both him and his best man, we had a chat for a while until guests started to arrive, again, lots of photo’s and plenty of attention from the people from over the field who’d been in  feeding the Deer.. yes, I said Deer, they have loads of them up there! Gorgeous place to go for lunch and a wander with the Deer, but you need to like flies! After the guests had arrived, it was time to wait for the Bride, we didn’t get any photo’s with her, but a few with the car and then it was time to leave, we were given our donation and a big thank you for a great day and off we went to get changed.

Mark, my son was with us, he took the photo’s, and he did a cracking job of that too!! We headed off into the field (in costume) with the Deer, a great photo opportunity that could not be missed, that was good fun and some great pics taken by Ian too… after all the fun and frivolities though, it was out of costume and off to the pub for lunch, I can and I’m sure the others agree, recommend a trip out to Whitworth to that pub, the meals are fantastic and it’s lovely to go in to spend time with the Deer…