Remembrance Sunday

Okay readers, it is Remembrance Sunday so you know what is coming. It looks as though they hold services and parades on the Sunday closest to November 11th rather than on November 11th as we do in Canada. Forres has a very fine war memorial and we found an article by the Forres Gazette that stated that there would be a Remembrance Sunday service in a Church of Scotland church, followed by a parade and the laying of wreaths at the war memorial.

We went for a walk in the gorgeous town of Forres, the people are very friendly and we were greeted by all the other walkers. Then we headed for the church, what were we thinking!? Unlike the Remembrance Day service that we are accustomed to, this was a full blown religious service but it had a colour party and members of the forces in attendance.

The Reverend was ancient, he grew up in Aberdeen and remembers Aberdeen being bombed in WWII when he was a kid. He had a sense of humour and an interest in history so the portion of his sermon which dealt with Remembrance Day was excellent. But as for the rest of it, wow, does he pound the congregation with his relentless religious message, it was bizarre for us to hear this over and over and we were a bit freaked at some of his seriously stodgy views on things.

We watched the parade, a lot of kids were involved, they seemed to be scouts and cadets. Then, when everybody got to the war memorial for the laying of wreaths there were more religion people blah blah blahing, then the laying of wreaths with no commentary of who was doing what and no reading of the soldiers names and I didn’t see any old veterans. Then another religious guy did his thing and finally the pipe band led the parade back down High Street. We then ducked into a café for lunch.

Forres must be full of gardening freaks, there are gardens everywhere and they win the Britain in Blooms competition. In summer when everything is in bloom the place must be spectacular.

Then we were off to Inverness to drop the car at the airport, grabbed the bus downtown and boarded the train to Edinburgh. They are doing work on the rail line so we had to take a bus when we got to Pitlochry and take it to Perth, then board the train from Perth to Edinburgh. It was a bit of a gong show because the train was late leaving Inverness so everybody missed the train in Perth. They had to get buses and we split into two different buses, those going to Edinburgh and those going to Glasgow. This put us into Edinburgh Waverley an hour late at 11:30 tonight. I am so glad our hotel is a short walk from Waverley train station and we had a clue as to where we were going since we took the train from Edinburgh to Inverness when we got here, such a short time ago, it feels like a very short time ago.

Thankfully we booked a hotel since we hate staying at a B&B, the one last night had the grossest most gag inducing “air freshener” in the place it was unreal. I think she was trying to mask the smell of musty air or mold or something, it was brutal.

We are looking forward to roaming around Edinburgh and love our hotel, it is awesome.

Pipe Band

Forres