Precious # 2

So, it's a CD and a ticket. But not just any ticket. It's a handmade invite to More Than A Fling in Dingwall, 1996. We went to a charity art auction on Valentine's Day that year and won this magical ticket in the raffle, which gave us entry to everything over the 4 day festival. So we booked ourselves into a B&B in Dingwall for the weekend and headed North in our wee car.

We met up with the organiser Lizzie and she gave us all the details for our weekend. First stop was a gig by Martyn Bennett. This is the CD we bought that night and it became our soundtrack to that whole weekend. We saw street theatre and puppets. We climbed a hill to hear a Carnyx. We mingled amongst the arty community in Dingwall. We also went off and explored the Black Isle. We wandered around in the rain at Glen Affric, and decided against taking in the 'sulphurous medicinal water' in the Victorian spa town of Stathpeffer. We drove through Fortrose golf course to get to Chanonry Point to watch the dophins in the Moray Firth and we had the most amazing lunch in a cafe there, finished off with the best scones ever!.

After spending a late night at Lizzie's, chatting. laughing, listening to Martyn play the fiddle we all trooping outside to stare at a huge moon and take photos. We rolled back into our B&B at stupid o'clock, then remember we had no chance of a long-lie. The lady B&B owner had announced that we'd have to be up early on Sunday, so she would have time to get breakfast cooked and served before going to Church.

So, this CD of music by brings back so many memories of that weekend. It also makes me a wee bit sad, because Martyn sadly died after a long battle with cancer. However, one thing that always brings the smile back is the sound of running water on the last track on the CD, which Martyn kindly revealed was the sound of him peeing, recorded and looped to make it the right length for the music....genius!