Angsty Monkey Festival

In July my friends Lisa, Phil, Lucy, Mark and Suki went to the Cambridge Folk Festival.

I didn't go because I had a lot of work to do. But, not to be outdone, I decided to go to Scotland instead, to the Auchtermuchty Festival (or 'Angsty Monkey' festival to thems who can't spell it or pronounce it without looking it up on Google ;))

My friend Andy and his beautiful pooch Blake (pictured) put me up for a few nights. Andy's one of the organisers of Muchty. Being a St. Andrews boy, he took me on a day excursion to have a good look round. A beautiful town, and the Lammas Market (now a street fair) was in full swing. Also went to the best ice-cream shop ever, called Jannettas - it sold every flavour you could think of!

There were some stunning old churches and very odd gravestones with skull and crossbone motifs on. I did a bit of online research and, contrary to popular mythology, they are not the graves of pirates :op They are simply reminders of mortality - a slightly macabre tradition on older stones, especially throughout Scotland and Wales.

Auchtermuchty itself lies overshadowed by two incredibly impressive old volcanoes. Seriously cool, but unfortunately I didn't take a picture.

We also took a wander down to the beach by the castle at St. Andrews, which was really lovely. Some real history in that town and in Muchty. The music festival itself got a bit rained out. It bucketed it down most of the time and the place filled up with slightly 'spirited' drunk Scots, but the Muchty yokels themselves are good guys. On one wet day I decided to take myself off for a wander and ended up in the middle of a grouse farm! I was really nervous the farmer would catch me, until someone pointed out that in Scotland you have the 'right to roam' - so no need to worry :)

Beer was drunk, yea oldy traditionaly music and jigs were sung and played, and a good time was had by all.