Roll up, roll up, for the next edition of the adventures of the Tartan Trailers coming to you from Luciana and Lucy, the luscious liaisons. When we last left you we were just about to embark on the epic journey of mid-tour retreat. Upon arrival at Hugh Grierson’s farm near Perth we hung up our wet socks and dried out our soggy sleeping bags in a handy poly tunnel and settled into our new home. Mid-tour retreat was a time for us all to reflect upon our time on the road and come up with ways to make us even closer and more effective as a community. And of course we planned to have lots of fun! We kicked off with an intense play rehearsal where we all swapped around our roles. It was really funny to watch people build upon the characters that others had previously played and rehearsal halted many times whilst we all got over the attack of the giggles! The weekend was also spent doing more serious stuff like sorting out the inevitable conflicts that arose from twelve strangers living in each others pockets for 3 weeks (like the strange occurrence that Otesha time seems to run circa an hour behind the rest of the world!). Although this was difficult at times we managed to resolve many of the issues we had encountered and our little band of two-wheeled world changers was much stronger and closer as a result. The only downside to this weekend was the onset of an autumnal turn of weather. Evenings were spent huddled together for warmth in a big breezy barn, partaking in the big Otesha quiz (that included every single obscure fact that Luciana’s brain contains), listening to the guitar and ukelele or snuggling down to hear Zoe’s dulcet voice reading us all another chapter from the wholesome ‘Ecotopia’.
Although mid-tour retreat was very fulfilling and spirit lifting I think we were all very ready to get to Stirling where we would have an indoor place to warm our cold toes and noses, so we set off on our two-wheeled steeds with gusto (actually setting off EARLIER than scheduled). The cycle ride was AMAZING! We rode up onto the moors above Stirling, just us and the buzzards to enjoy the spectacular views all around. Andres bravely took a naked dip in a small stream whilst we all played poo sticks on a handy bridge. Congratulations to those who lugged the heavy trailers up the massive hill at the end. The icing on the cake was arriving at our accommodation and finding a lovely church room with an OVEN (!), LIGHTS (!) and a real toilet. Oh the luxury! In high spirits we settled into our big carpeted room and had a couple of relaxed play rehearsals before our performance at St. Ninians primary school the next morning. From our first real stage we acted our hearts out and had the kids giggling away, especially when Andres the cow mooed his way onto stage with Arthur attached to the back of him making up his back legs. That afternoon we got a free bike check from the extremely kind mechanics at recycke-a-bike (we made them an amazing recycled thank you card) and later we munched our way through vegan pizzas mmmmmm. Next day was our day off, used in a variety of ways. The speedy gonzalez crew (Andina and the boyz) went on a 60 mile bike hike while the rest of us went for leisurely swims and checked our emails. Civilised. Then I (Lucy) left to London for a job interview (sadly unsuccessful), not before handing lots of money over to Luciana to sustain the team in my absence and waving them off to Gartmore for fresh adventures.
Thanks for your enlightened scribbles Lucy! Luciana here again! So after a speedy and uneventful cycle ride (apart from one Everest style hill) we arrived in the beautiful village of Gartmore. Small but perfectly formed, Gartmore had it all – a community run shop, a handily placed pub with a variety of tasty ales and a teeny-weeny school with only 19 kids! It was in the playing field of said school that we pitched our tents much to the curiosity of the local kids. Myself and Catherine got stuck into fixing the rather overgrown willow dome whilst the boys settled down to well-earned game of footie. Next day we pootled over to the school to perform the play, complete with a brand new song. It was a hit with all 19 of the kids! After an old-fashioned school dinner we cracked on with three workshops, food, fashion and transport. That night we discovered we had run out of gas so the cooking team decided to patronise the local pub and came out with tupperwares full of chips which we scoffed in the nearby village hall to shelter from the rain. Morning came and thankfully the weather had dried up as we mounted our steeds once more and cycled over (some very big) hills and dales all the way to the big smoke of Glasgow…. Love from Luciana Banana, Leah-Pop, Jenny Tree, Jenny A, Lucy Colbiz, Zoe, Kimberley (Eco), King Arthur, Colin-der, Dina the Dinosaur, Andres, and Catherine xxxxxxx
Many thanks to the Postcode Trust for their generous support of this project.
