Cities and Knights

Hello everyone,

Today Stuart and I took a break from cleaning the house (yes, again, or rather, still) and visited a little town by the name of Dunblane.

Dunblane is remarkably close in name to Dunbar, a fact we discovered when, looking at our tickets, we saw Dunbar looking back at us. Luckily, we successfully used the FirstScot Rail Switch to our advantage. It goes a little something like this:

1. When the ticket man approaches, pretend to be asleep.
2. When he wakes you, spend an inappropriate amount of time fumbling with your wallet to get your tickets.
3. Flash him the orange of a train ticket quickly, and he'll usually let you go.
4. If not, wait until he points out that they are tickets to a different location. Say "Is that what they say?" and look incredulously at it yourself.
5. Say that's what they gave you at the station as a ticket to Dunblane.
6. Laugh it off with the nice Scottish man and go back to pretending to be asleep.

This little trick saved us £6! Thanks, FirstScot Rail! And thank you, Scotland, for having a wide array of similar-sounding towns and cities to choose from!

Dunblane was, however, only a stopover on the way to Doune, a small, train station-less town 3 miles from Dunblane.

For those who, like most sane people, use the metric system, three miles is 15840 feet, or, in layman's terms, one ass long fuckin distance.

Doune Castle is famous as the set for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It came complete with and audio guide narrated Terry Jones (of Monty Python) and a bunch of references to long since deceased Scottish noble families, not to mention disconcertingly helpful gift shop staff.

So all in all, the mission to Doune was a great success bereft of giant sandworms, and we retired home to the fresh scent of hangdrying laundry and a hot pot o' tea.

Have a cuppa yourself, can't do you no harm,

John from Canada