A Different Kind of Tattoo...

This post is going to be mostly pictures, so I decided to put them all at the end, and this time I left them a bit smaller – that way they take up less room, but you can click on one to open the pictures, and scroll through to view them better if you like :)

Earlier this week, Adam and I went to Edinburgh on the train, and stayed overnight to watch the Edinburgh Tattoo. This little trip was courtesy of Adam’s dad, who paid for it as a combination early 30^th birthday present for Adam, and farewell gift for both of us.

The train ride up to Edinburgh only took 3 hours, and went by very pleasantly in First Class!!! We were very lucky to travel this way, thanks to a combination of Adam’s dad’s generosity, and our railcards making it much cheaper. It was my 3^rd time in First Class; the first time being when Adam whisked me off to propose to me, and the second time being a weird anomaly with ticket prices when I was going somewhere, and the First Class ticket was only £5 more than the Standard ticket. As the food and drink is included in a First Class ticket, it actually worked out cheaper to do this!

Edinburgh was very busy at it was Festival time, so we didn’t sight-see, but rather soaked up the atmosphere from the Fringe events going on around us, and enjoyed local beers :)

This year’s Tattoo has a theme of Our Home, Friends and Family, “As Scotland prepares to welcome the world as part of the exciting year of Homecoming, hundreds of Commonwealth participants are set to play a part in this year's Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Music, dance and precision display with the Massed Pipes and Drums, the Bands of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, cultural troupes, singers and the poignant refrain of the Lone Piper against the stunning backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.”   There was a strong theme throughout the Tattoo of presenting the performers in terms of their relationship with Scotland and the Scots who set out to faraway lands in the past, and it was pretty interesting! 

My favourite parts were the world’s only steel marching band, from Trinidad and Tobago, and also the Maori performance. I was always fascinated by Maoris when I was little – I loved the Haka that they perform before rugby matches, I love the idea of New Zealand as a country, and I was always utterly fascinated by the amazing feats of exploration, discovery and settling civilisations in new lands that was done by the Polynesian people all over the southern oceanic area.  So amazing! I was very excited when I spotted some Maori performers as we were walking into the performance area to get to our seats. I asked them if I could take their photo, and they very kindly pulled faces for me, and even sneaked me a photo with them! (I do wish I looked better in photos! The earlier rain ruining my hair didn’t help either…)

The Tattoo is all about the precision marching, in some cases tribal or native dancing, and of course the music, so still photos can’t really do it justice. Also it was dark with odd lighting coming from directly opposite me, which really didn’t help with getting decent photos! But here is the best I could manage :)