Things I'm loving...

While we were in Lewis last week the older three boys and one of their cousins spent a couple of days shinty training with Lewis Camanachd. The team had organised for some of their players to do some coaching for children, calling it their Shinty Camp.

 

 

 

David (8) came out on the second day with this huge Easter egg, his prize for being 'player of the camp'. He was very kind and shared his egg with all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We loved the chance for the boys to spend time with their 90 year old great granny. Fraser is starting to get a little bit shy with people and so cried the first couple of days we tried sitting him on my granny's knee. She was delighted though, when after a few days he would sit happily on her knee - although he couldn't sit on her for long as he's a heavy wee thing!

 

 

 

 

We loved the - mostly - great weather while we were away (and since we've been back), and getting back into the outdoors life after the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calum (11) still wants nothing more than to be a crofter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we left the island was beautiful sailing weather. Somewhere across that horizon is mainland Scotland.

 

 

 

The boys entertained themselves nicely on the ferry. So much so that an older man came across to me at one point and said, 'I don't know what you paid for those boys but whatever it was it was a bargain! They are delightful!' Well, that was really lovely to hear as I always think people must see us coming along with five boys and think, 'please don't sit next to us!' Especially on a nearly three hour ferry crossing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the boat was closer to the mainland we went outside to get some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those two bits of land are the mainland, Lewis is out of sight across the horizon.

 

 

 

Since returning back David has been playing more shinty. This time with a French rugby team. Yes Rugby team. A junior team were coming over to Scotland and wanted to know about shinty so they got in touch with our shinty team to ask if they could give them a day of coaching. My hubs is one of the coaches so he and David spent a sunny day trying to teach the French that shinty involves less bodily contact than rugby!

 

 

 

 

David handed them all a little momento from the shinty team at the end of the day.

 

 

The following day the same rugby team were involved in matches against Calum & David's rugby team. It was the first time either boy had played in a competitive match.

 

I have to admit that the French boys outclassed the Scots in every age group but it was great experience for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

And David continued to show that he is an all round sportsman by scoring three tries! That's him hitting the ground in the photo below.

 

 

 

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Music, medals and shinty.

On Saturday it was once again time for our annual local Mòd.

 

The Mòd, for those who may have missed the posts from previous years, is a sort of Gaelic Music & Literary competition. The National Mòd takes place in October each year, in a different town each time. It is obviously a much bigger affair than the little local Mòds, and there are competitons for adults as well as children. Our local Mòd only has children's competitons and has, in my opinion anyway, a much nicer and far less pressurised atmosphere than the National Mòd.

 

Calum (10) was the busiest of our boys on the day. He entered 4 competitons and took a placing in each of them.

 

 

 

He came 2nd in Reading an unseen passage from the Bible (Bible Gaelic is harder to read than your average Gaelic book!); 2nd in conversation (his chosen subject - why I want to be a crofter when I grow up); 2nd in solo accordion; and 1st with the folk group he is in with a few friends from his class.

 

James (13) didn't enter any solos but he did keep up his reputation of doing well in the short film competition, winning first for his animation.

 

David (7) didn't fancy taking part in any solos either but had an absolute ball of a day, literally. We were at the competition from about 9am - 4pm. I had a craft stall which kept me tied up when I wasn't watching Calum but David didn't mind. A few of his friends were there all day too. They too were not taking part but had siblings doing various competitons and so the friends played football outside for the whole time. There was about half an hour when David wasn't playing football and that was when he was taking part in the shinty tournament. And about 10 minutes when he came in and wolfed down some lunch. Other than that, football. All day long. An ideal sort of day for our David!

 

Our team were beaten in the shinty tournament but everyone enjoyed a good game.

I think David had already run off to play football again when I took this photo of the other boys! Thankfully Calum had already taken part in all his solos by this point and had another couple of hours to tidy himself up before his folk group competition.

 

I'll finish off tonight with a lovely little clip of Calum's folk group. The children in it are all only 10 years old and I'm sure you will be impressed at how well they play together as a group.

 

 

 

 

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Weekend Fun

There was quite a choice of things to do on the island on Saturday.

Firstly, the tall ships were in town.

We had already been up close to see them the day before, but on Saturday I took this photo of them from the town centre.

There was also a Celtic Music festival on last week, and as part of this, there was an inter-island shinty match between Lewis and Uist.

We popped along to watch some of the match, which was won 3-2 by Lewis. Yay!

After this we went along to the Highland Games.

One of the highlights of this is the strong man competition, which included the stereotypical Caber Tossing.

First challenge, is to get the caber off the ground. They actually made this look pretty easy!

Then they have a wee run before throwing the caber. The aim is to get the caber to flip right over.

This one hasn't quite managed to flip it, so he get's no points.

Now it's someone else's go. 

He had more success, you can see the caber falling the opposite way.

Any willing children were invited into the ring to take part in a tug of war.

First the bigger ones. James is second from the right in the red top.

Then the smaller ones. Our Mr Competitive, David, is at the front.

Calum was in the opposing team, making him even more competitive!

That evening, after dinner, we were having a hit around with the shinty sticks. David was obviously thinking of his day at the Highland Games as he then turned his shinty stick round, held it like a caber and said, 'Look, I'm one of the strong men,'

before then throwing it up in the air like a caber!

Soon they were all joining in, in the evening sunshine.

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'It makes football look like hairdressing'

The title of this post comes from a comment I read someone make about shinty.

Shinty is the forgotten national game of Scotland. Less famous than the over-priced football, rugby or golf, but it's supporters and players are no less passionate about their sport.

Rumour has it that golf is actually derived from shinty. Long ago, shinty players would practise their swing and this then turned into golf. I'm not sure if this is remotely true but it's a nice story!

Traditionally shinty was a west highland game. Although the central belt now has teams as well, the west highland ones still seem to be the most successful.

My husband was brought up in one of the shinty heartlands, Oban, and so is a keen player and supporter of the game. His playing days have actually turned to coaching days, and he is now one of the coaches at the boys' school.

Shinty sticks are known as camans, which comes from camanachd, the Gaelic for shinty. They come in extra small sizes too so that your littlest man can get an early start. Alasdair obviously has the game in his blood, as he likes nothing better than hitting a ball around with a stick. Indoors he will find any object to use as a stick, from a pencil to a penny whistle, and any little ball he can get his hands on, and then is quite content chasing the ball up and down the living room with his stick.

He's his daddy's boy.

The three oldest boys all go to shinty training on a Saturday morning. Calum is a keen little player. David is also keen and suitably fearless for such a game. James enjoys the run around but you can see he would rather be at home making some animation or reading a book! Oh well, his mother was never really the sporty type either, so we can let him off with that!

When playing shinty, all the boys wear helmets that kind of look like ice-hockey helmets, with bars protecting their faces. The shinty ball is extremely hard and travels very fast. My husband bears a few scars from his playing days, when helmets weren't worn and when there would usually be a player or two sporting a blood covered strip! 

All the youth players wear the helmets, but plenty of the adults still don't. It certainly separates the men from the boys, in more ways than one! The clip below is excellent. The commentary is in Gaelic and just listen for the whack of the shinty ball as the keeper saves the penalty with his head with NO helmet. And wins the game for his team!

Give me a rugged shinty player over a pampered footballer anyday.

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