Roll Over.....

In Crail this evening to spend some time with friends staying at the caravan park. We had booked a pod for the night - very different to the one we had stayed in a few weeks ago at Edzell. This was was no hobbit house - in fact our friend Carol described it as looking like a Gypsy caravan with no legs. It was twice the length of the hobbit house one and when we opened it, we found that it had a double bed berth at the back as well as two single berths at the front, and, to J's delight, it also had a telly! Luxury! Sheer class!

When we had driven into the town earlier, I had noticed - well you couldn't fail not to notice it - this enormous sand sculpture. My first thought was that it looked like Beethoven, but I couldn't comprehend why they would have Beethoven here - in a little town in the far edges of Fife. I wondered if it was Gulliver then - some reference to him being washed up on the beach in Lilliput? As we drove by, J looked backwards and said that there was music carved into the back of the head, so was it Beethoven after all then? But why?

After having High Tea (a strange meal I always think - breakfast, dinner and afternoon tea all rolled into one with it's toast, main course and cakes - but one of these peculiarly British eccentricities which I think we should always maintain) at the hotel behind (though it served the strangest lasagne I have ever had - it didn't have sheets, instead it had little ravioli sized squares of pasta and what looked like chopped up tagliatelle strips - it was most odd) we came out and explored this sculpture at close quarters. It is indeed Beethoven and, as the sign indicates, it was created for the East Neuk Festival, which has now finished but was based around classical music.

Back to the caravan park after this, all of us packing ourselves into Carol and George's caravan for a wee drinkie, and then, when they needed their bed at 11pm, Karen, Peter, Stina, Hannah and I moved on and noticed that Bruce and Liz (another two friends who were staying here - popular caravan park this!) were still up, so we knocked on their window and ended up in there (more drinkies) until 3am. As we left I joked that I hoped the latch on the pod had been left open otherwise I might have to sleep on Bruce and Liz's sofa. Oh, how prophetic that turned out to be! Ken and J, who had gone to bed at about 10pm, hadn't left the door on the latch and I was locked out. I rattled the handles but there was no stirring from within. So I had to go back to Bruce and Liz's caravan and ask if I could sleep on their sofa after all.

£40 I paid for a night in that pod and I didn't even get to sleep in it! Alas my idea of producing a booklet "Pods of Scotland Wot I Have Stayed In" has had a severe knockback!