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So I'd gotten to the Spanish bagpipes I guess ...

I'm actually in Canada now! Thank God I finally made it after several months of trying. I'm exhausted though, the trip was 32 hours long from the hostel to Aly's cottage, including 10 hours of bus rides, 9 or so hours of flying and about 4 hours in the car. I've been here for about 24 hours and I've slept, ate and driven a motorboat up and down the St Lawrence River (luckily with not much traffic, so no casualties - I'm a learner).

The scenery is beautiful and Aly's family is great so I'll stay here for a bit, til they kick me out.

About the last week or so - I'll try and do it quickly but some parts will need to be discussed in reasonable detail...

The quarry party was amazing, we were there til about 9am, I had to work 2 hostel shifts that day too (including my last burger shift - I know my fans will miss my cooking), and then went to Nicol Edwards for open mic again. I worked semi-regularly for the rest of the week, missed the meadows on Monday, had some people over on Tuesday and ended up at Ego again with Matt until close, spoke to some friends on the phone til 6.30am, and went to Liquid Rooms (for Andrew's goodbye and Jas' birthday) on Wednesday til they kicked us out too. Thursday night was the Bank and Nicol Edwards again for Andrew's last night.

Friday I hopped in a bus with 12 other people and headed up to Strathdon (teeny weeny town nearish Aberdeen) for a highland games. We hung out in the pub Friday night, Maz and I were attacked in our sleep by what we concluded was a ghost and then were woken up by a piper (and sheep in the background) at 6am. At 8am the men of the Lonach area were in their dress kilts, swords and spears in hand, marching around with the pipe band to each of the old estates and having a dram of whisky at each (one of which is Billy Connolly's house). They ended up at the pub/hotel we were camped out the back of and they had another drink and lunch there. They marched about 9 miles in the heat (it was a beautiful day) and were drunk and sweating by the time they got there. We spent the day looking at stalls, watching the events (highland dancing, piping, pillow fighting, caber tossing, high jumping, tug of war and general throwing heavy things around) and star spotting (we were sitting mere metres away from Billy Connolly, Sean Connery (that's right Lucy) and Steve Martin - apparently Michael Parkinson and Fran from Travis were also there). We weren't allowed to take photos but we did anyway (really really inconspicuously, of course). Some of the girls met Billy Connolly but by the time we found them the guards were telling people to go away.

We had a barbecue that night, with about 12 kazillion sausages of all shapes and sizes. After about 45 minutes of trying to start a coal barbecue without fire lighters (oops, forgot them), some neighbouring campers took pity on us and gave us a disposable party bbq which lasted us ages (we gave them a tray of sausages in return, as we had so many) and also a little one for breakfast the next day (didn't use it as no time, and no sausages).

There was a ceilidh after the games, and also a disco in a tent on the other side of the pub. The amount of people there was insane and we met some really awesome locals, and danced the night away with men in kilts (what more could a girl ask for?).

The trip back was a typical rush in the last hour, we needed to get the bus back by 1 and the traffic foiled us. Made it though, luckily, no thanks to the excessive amount of country music we were subjected to on the weekend.

The rest of my time in Edinburgh was pretty chill, just sorting out bits and pieces and trying to hang with my friends.

I'm not sure when I'll get to update again but no doubt I'll be getting up to hijinks in Canada, I'll try and let you know...