Day 32 - Ballachulish Village Hall, Thursday 6th October

Quite an easy journey. Went through Fort William. We decided it was a very easy journey. Got on the A9 to Fort William. We got there in a couple of hours. For some reason the other guys went to Inverness which takes ages more. But they were only half an hour behind us, as they were in the faster van. Pulled into Ballachulish. It is absolutely beautiful. Really lovely setting amongst the mountains and stuff. We were early. We went to the pub just around the corner. We had our food there. The others turned up eventually and we went to do the Get In. Now, my shoulders were really playing up so I didn’t carry much in. We had to set up a rail in the open Kitchen thing behind the stage- it was cool. We went to find our digs.

Actually we were staying in Glencoe which is a ten minute drive down the road. Fleur told us it was through the Glencoe Village. So Struan and I went through the village and couldn’t see it.We turned round and drove right down. Then we got lost again. Called her, had to go two miles past the village. Basically at the end of this road are these chalets at the foot of these mountains, fantastic, sooo beautiful. I saw Beth, Fleur and Lindsey were staying there. They were in the foyer. Went to open the door -the handle was an ice pick! So I opened the door going "Wow" and making loads of noise. They told me to shut up. I didn’t realise they were in the middle of this conversation. So we got our room. We went into it. For some reason the wall sockets weren’t working at all. We told them. We went back and said wouldn’t it be great if we were upgraded. Five mins later, I’m sitting in my room and let out a massive fart and Struan says the guy is going to come back in a minute! We were really tired, we started laughing. I pulled a muscle inside my ribs. Sooo sore. We went to the bar to get food. Really lovely old-style country bar and had a really big pool table. We ordered food. The girls arrived. We all sat down, playing pool, having a laugh. One of the waitresses was an ex stage manager for Mull theatre! (Zoë). We decided it was time to go. Went to the venue, did the show. Started the show. Got to the bit where I climb the steps. To do that two of the big trucks move to the side. But when Andy and Beth moved their truck, they moved theirs into a wall light. There was this big crash, absolutely trashed it.  At half time Beth apologised to the guy (Brian Dickie). But he said it was ok. Seemingly we are not the first. So that made for an interesting show. Went really well. They really enjoyed it; it was a good fun show. We kind of relaxed  after the wall light trashing..We did the Get Out. We couldn’t find the van keys. We rang Random Dave, he had them. He was at the pub, so he ran back and then we all went to the pub. When we got there, the MTV music awards were on. Struan and I dribbled over Christina A, her costumes and stuff. At one point, Avid Merrion from Bo Selectar came on as Michael Jackson. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I was laughing so hard I felt my throat was going to come out of my mouth. Eventually the pub closed. So we all had to leave and go back to our chalets and go to bed.