Whirlwind Tour of Scotland

Pandemonium in Pewsey

Mr E had the honour of organising New Year 2005 (and a fine job he did to). As a result we rented not one, but three cottages. This meant Kim didn't have to sleep in a cot in a landing. Jamie and Dan didn't have to sleep on camp beds in a room that let more water in then it kept out and we didn't have to squeeze ten people into one lounge. For once we all had a proper bed of our own!!! More importantly though three cottages meant, three kitchens, which meant lots of room for all the food

A lot of the time in the cottage was spent playing some of the hundreds of board games bought along - some of these games we were able to get to grips with, some of them clearly not!!

This year also saw a trend for people to dress up in strange clothes - OK stranger than normal. In order to illustrate we have..

Robin Hood?

Anybody spot the penguin suit?

A Farmers Convention?

Finals of a Dance Competition?

No comment

Be warned, some of the images below of Kim are extremely disturbing, for anyone of a nervous disposition, you have been warned

Day 1 - Some Rocks

I wasn't there the first day. Obviously nobody could think of anything to do, so they went to look at some rocks. I haven't seen any pictures of these rocks, but I presume they were something like below..

Day 2 - Salisbury

There is an argument that the Universe is completely balanced, for every force the opposing exists to balance it. Following this argument to make up for the chaos that S Division generally causes, its members have to partake of afternoon tea and various civilised/cultural activities to restore harmony to the Universe. Hogmanay was approaching, in the S-Division calendar this is the annual peak of madness as this account makes clear. A lot of cultural activities and tea drinking were required to restore harmony to the Universe - or the aliens would have kept Mr E for ever...

In order to push the cultural swingometer firmly in our favour we went to Old Sarum and Salisbury for the day:

Then to firmly push the swingometer firmly in the other direction, Kim went into Oxfam to try on some clothes for the evening. I don't think the two little old ladies who were working in the shop were quiet prepared for what they saw walking out of the dressing room. They were so distressed they had to shut the shop early, can't think why. (Warning This Picture Is VERY Disturbing)

A Murder, Mimes and Smelly Cheese

The Scenario

It is October 1942. Across Europe and Africa, the war is turning against Hitler. At Stalingrad, despite enduring months of the worst fighting ever seen, Russian soldiers and civilians are starting to push the German army back from its positions�..Meanwhile, France has been divided in two, Paris and the North is occupied by the Germans�.America enters the war and US forces are about land at Casablanca. Our cottage in Pewsey became the official residence of the Deputy Mayor of Casablanca, Monsieur Le Grandbutte, for a dinner where the Guest of honour was to have been France's greatest living mime artist, The Black Cat (no prizes for guessing who was playing the Black Cat)- but he has been murdered and there was a house full of suspects.

THE CAST

	Huges Le Grandbutte	Deputy Mayor of Casablanca, epitome of respectability
	Edith Le Grandbutte	Wife of Huges, retired dancer.
	Nicole Le Grandbutte	Daughter of Huges and Edith, would rather be in Paris
	Otto Von Pinklehurst	Gestapo officer, quite mad
	Kirk Ramson III	American hero with a broken heart, runs a caf�.
	Countess Bogov	Russian Aristocrat in exile, glamourous and mysterious
	Monsieur Oily-Carte	Nightclub booking agent, impeccable manners
	Pierre Paysanski	Poet of French and Russian parentage
	Cherie Boot	Husky voiced French caberet singer, exotic, almost androgenous
	Ingrid Pith	Danish art dealer, busty and flirtatious
	Seamus O'Hack	Irish Journalist, more interested in drinking than writing.
	Pia Fedora	Spanish caberet star, fiery and passionate

What happened? Pandemonium is what happened. The sanity swing-o-meter went off scale and almost got irreversibly stuck at universe breakdown. An onslaught of the worst French/Russian/German accents you will ever hear. All debates struggled over a background soundtrack of Dan's crazed maniacal ranting about mime. Each round grew progressively longer and louder as the plot was almost lost completely. But without fail when each round finally ended Jim (cast as the drunken Irish Journalist, for some reason) would chirp in that all the new developments were 'very interesting' and the new round would start...

Day 3 - The Castle

S Division Trips demand both castles and Tall Things. Old Wardor Castle provided both. We even found somewhere to put Dave, so that he couldn't cause any mischief. A pub in the nearby town of Wilton provided very good pies - a more important ingredient for a good trip.

Day 4 - The White Horse & Alien Abductions

Mr E. got abducted by aliens� Karen, Kim and Dan went to find him. They searched for Mr E in the loft and down the toilet and in even more obscure places. Unfortunately the stress of the entire situation played its toll on the three searchers, reduced to wrecks of their former selves, paralysed on the ground unable to move - a wonder they did not die of laughter, maybe this was the aliens plan.

For the concerned amongst you, the searchers were restored with tea and once the aliens had finished probing Mr E he was returned to us, at least we think so�After this nothing could be done to restore universal harmony, the swing-o-meter was broken, and sanity, what little there was to start with, was lost for ever.

No New Year trip is complete without the compulsory trek through muddy fields. This year our trek us to the Pewsey White House and for the hard core amongst us the Pewsey Giant Burial Mound. The top of Pewsey Hill also offered a good vantage point to spot the landing zone of the alien space craft that abducted Mr E the previous evening.

(Treking through the mud and climbing the hill)

(Alien spotting from the hill)

There is even photographic evidence of S-Division communicating with the aliens (unfortunately the spacecraft is just out of shot).

Day 5 - Oxford

Because Oxford is no doubt a scary place, rather than attack the city directly, Gizmo decided it would be best to confuse the enemy by circumnavigating it first. Although at the time this seemed like a silly idea, we did escape from Oxford with our lives, so perhaps, with hindsight, it was the best thing to do. So what did S Division do in Oxford, we drank tea, we climbed the tall thing, brushed up on our anthropology and natural history and then we had some beer. Not just any old beer in any old pub, but in the same pub as Tolkien drank in before dreaming all that stuff up about little people, goblins and evil jewellery - so it must be good stuff.

Then we all went home and had some tea, refreshed and ready to tackle 2005

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