Catching the train from London to Edinburgh turned out to be a bit trickier than I expected! I have a Britrail pass - basically a slightly cheaper way of paying for train tickets, designed for tourists - and was told I wouldn't need to worry about reserving seats. 'Just go to the train station, get it validated the first time you use it, and hop on your train,' the travel agent said. In all fairness, that was what the guy at the station who validated the pass said as well 'Yes, that's fine, just hop on the train you want and show your pass to the ticket inspector when he comes around.'

Yes. Right. Nice theory. I found the train easily enough; found the right platform, deposited my luggage in the luggage car (because that's what it said to do if you were travelling through to Edinburgh), climbed aboard and....Hmmmm. Seemed like every seat had a ticket on it saying 'Reserved'. No sweat - try the next carriage - nope, same deal. I wandered down the length of the train and could only spot a few seats with no reserved ticket (and they were already taken). I asked a guard whether there were any unreserved seats (thinking maybe I was just missing something); he said if there weren't, I'd either need to find a seat that was reserved for a different portion of the trip (I was going London - Edinburgh on a train bound for Glasgow, so there was a possibility that someone had reserved the Edinburgh - Glasgow portion) or upgrade to first class.

Back on the train, I couldn't see any seats that were reserved for journeys starting anywhere other than Edinburgh, so I was just starting to look for someone to ask how to upgrade to first class (and, more importantly, how much that would cost) when the train moved off. That put paid to my other thought (of abandoning this training and waiting for the next one, which might have been tricky anyway, given that my luggage was loaded) and left me no option but to drift up and down the carriage looking for a place to sit,

The second stop on the journey was a place called Peterborough; I found a pair of seats that were reserved from Peterborough to Edinburgh and sat down, figuring I'd worry about the rest once I arrived in Peterborough and someone came up wanting the seats. In Peterborough, though, I got lucky; the person destined for the seat I was in never showed, and then the girl who was in the seat next to me got up and moved to be next to a friend. So I parked myself in her seat - figuring that, unless she came back, no-one could conceivably turn up with a ticket and turf me out of it - and had a peaceful trip the rest of the way to Edinburgh.

I arrived in Edinburgh in the late afternoon, with pouring rain (it's rained the entire time I've been in Scotland) and a sore throat, so all I did was hike to the hotel, check in, and collapse on the bed. I ordered room service, watched a bit of TV, and went to bed early, hopeful of waking up in the morning feeling a little more energetic and a lot less croaky. As it happened, I did, and the next morning was out and about nice and early, heading off to see the Crieff Highland Games.

This was a tour I'd booked through a company called Highland Explorer Tours. About twenty of us piled into a small bus and headed off in to the Highlands, with our Scottish guide/driver, Matt. He chatted away for most of the drive, telling us various snippets of Scottish history and culture (eg, apparently Edinburgh's nickname 'Auld Reekie' came from a period when thousands of people were crammed into a small area, emptying chamber pots into the streets each night). Our first stop was at a little coffee shop/gift shop, which has hit upon the brilliant idea of combining a good location, big car park, and free attraction (Hamish the highland bull) so that all the coach tours heading up from Edinburgh to the Highlands stop there. Poor Hamish is apparently a bull in quarantine; he lived through a foot and mouth epidemic which swept the area several years ago. Most cattle were destroyed to prevent the disease spreading further; Hamish's owners managed to get special dispensation for him provided that he's never allowed near other cattle again. Perhaps for that reason, he's quite friendly and spends a lot of time at the fence, posing for photos and accepting bits of apple and carrot from tourists (even through a double fence, which is no doubt meant to keep his impressive horns from making any contact - intentional or accidental - with tourists too dopey to dodge).

After saying hello to Hamish, we climbed back on the bus and were back on our way. We made a couple of scenic stops to take photos of Loch Lubnaig and Loch Earn, then hit Crieff for the Highland Games themselves. The guide dropped us off at the entrance, and we had just over four hours to ourselves. The Games reminded me a bit of, say, the Berwick Show, but with a (quirky) sporting focus rather than agricultural. There was a big main arena where most of the events took place, and a couple of smaller areas where certain things (pipe bands and highland dancing) were held. All around the outside of the 'showgrounds' were stalls selling food, souvenirs, toys, etc; there were also a few carnival rides (a jumping castle, merry-go-round, etc).

At first, I was a bit disappointed. I couldn't seem to see or find anything interesting; I spent half an hour meandering, unable to find anywhere to park myself where I could see anything I wanted to see. It was about lunchtime, so I gave up temporarily, headed into the Crieff Town Centre, and had lunch at a cafe. I must have been hungrier than I thought I was, because when I returned to the showgrounds afterwards, everything seemed to fall into place, I got the hang of the programme (running about half an hour behind, which was why I couldn't manage to be in the right place at the right time earlier) and had a ball taking in various events.

The Highland Dancing was fascinating; I watched Irish Jigs, Highland Flings and the Sword Dance. This seems to be an event reserved for kids and teenagers (mostly, but not exclusively, girls); I didn't see anyone older competing. The Caber Toss was cool, as you'd expect; I always thought the aim was to hurl the thing as far as possible, but apparently not. Style is the thing; the perfect throw flips the caber end over end and has it land directly opposite the thrower (the way they describe is that the thrower is at six o'clock and the caber should land at twelve o'clock). It takes two men to haul the caber back to the next contestant, who then repeats the process. The Tug of War is taken very, very seriously; as we left, the grand final was taking place; it started half an hour before I headed out and was not finished when I departed. For most of that time, the two teams seemed motionless, poised at either end of the rope and glaring at each other. Another interesting event was a 56 pound weight toss (not sure what it's proper name was). This involved each competitor standing in front of a bar (like a high jump bar, but about 15 feet off the ground when they started). He had a 56 pound weight on the ground in front of him, and the aim was to pick that up, hurl it backwards over his head and over the bar. If it cleared the bar, he was through to the next round; if it went under the bar or knocked the bar off, he had one more chance to clear it at that height before he was out. This continued until there was only one contestant left; I think the bar was at over 16 feet by that point. Every time I watched someone doing this, I wondered (a) who the hell came up with this bizarre idea and (b) how many people end up in hospital every year from trying it!

Other events were more normal track-and-field events: bike races, running races, shot put, kids' relay races and high jump. There were also pipe bands and solo bagpipe players competing throughout the day, though what the criteria was I have no idea. Once the time was up, we all wandered back out and met the bus for the drive back to Edinburgh, where I grabbed some dinner and crashed in preparation for a long day the next day.

Monday was my Edinburgh Military Tattoo day. What Highland Explorer Tours did was put together a tour of the Highlands and bundle a Tattoo ticket in with it; I almost considered ditching the tour once I had the ticket, so that I could spend some time actually in Edinburgh itself, but I'm glad I didn't. Our tour guide, Peter, was fantastic - good at telling the historical stories, and very, very funny. We took a similar route to the one we took on Sunday, but the first stop was completely different. We visited Bannockburn - the site of a famous battle in Scottish history - and the guide did an absolutely hilarious re-enactment of the key events, with a tea-towel sized flag wrapped around his shoulders, a fake crown on his head, and a plastic toy battle axe in one hand. He had us all in stitches (including the people from Uruguay, China and Poland, whose English wasn't spectacular), and made what was essentially a visit to a paddock with a statue of Robert the Bruce quite interesting.

Next, we headed across to visit Hamish again (I told you all the coach tours stopped there!) and this time I got someone to take a picture of me patting him (actually, she volunteered, because she wanted me to take a picture of her), then it was back on the bus and across to a little town called Killin for our lunch. Killin was very pretty and not hugely touristy; the guide warned us not to all go to the same place for lunch or we'd never get out of there in time (he reckons that there's really no cultural difference between highlanders and lowlanders any more, except that highlanders have their own concept of time and move always at their own place). I headed for 'A Wee Little Bakery' (that was its name), as did several others, and that was an experience in itself. It was run by an English couple in their 50s or 60s, and they projected an air of strained tolerance for the tourist horde overrunning their shop (it was a tiny shop, granted, but there were only about eight people in there while I was there). The wife barked at each new person who came in 'Shut the door! We don't want any wasps in here!' (as though there were swarms of wasps hovering outside in the rain, just waiting for a chance to dart in), and when the husband took someone's order for a pie he gruffly surveyed the shop and demanded that anyone else who was having a pie tell him then, so he could heat them all at once. Later, back on the bus, some of the other tourists were quite indignant about how rude the couple in the bakery had been; I wasn't, and didn't actually think them rude. Just very straightforward and not prepared to take any nonsense from the tourists disturbing their peace (and fair enough to). For the record, the roll and cake I had from there were lovely and (perhaps because I shut the door without being told and meekly handed over the right change when it came time to pay) I didn't have any trouble with the owners.

After grabbing lunch, I wandered back up into the town, crossed the little stone bridge (not without hazard, as there was no footpath) and took some photos of the river running through. The sign said what I was looking at was 'The Falls of Dochart'; just looked to me like a rocky part of the river, but it was pretty anyway. It was raining, so we all headed back to the bus relatively quickly, and most of us ended up eating there.

After Killin, we took a scenic drive through some of the most beautiful country imaginable. There wasn't really anywhere you could stop a bus, so we didn't have any photo opportunities, which is a shame; I took a stab at a few photos through the window, but photos taken from a moving bus through a rain streaked window just don't work and I soon gave it up in favour of just looking. We went through a beautiful valley, with rocky, mist shrouded mountains rising on either side; close to the road were lush green paddocks (many still with old stone walls) full of sheep, and further back you could see the sides of the mountains rising up, purple with the heather in bloom. Apparently, August is a good time of year to visit Scotland; the heather only blooms for a few weeks, and it's definitely a sight worth seeing.

The last stop of the afternoon was the Flying Grouse Distillery, where there was an opportunity to take a tour to see how whisky is made, try some samples, and learn how to distinguish different types of whisky. Most of the group went and did that but a few of us decided we had no interest in it (if nothing else, a whisky distillery has a distinctive, pungent smell - likely slightly off yeast). Some went to the little cafe attached to the distillery; I went for a bit of a wander along the river and took a few photos. Then it was back to the bus, and time to return to Edinburgh, through more spectacular scenery (I can't get used to being in a country where you frequently drive past a castle or church and have someone say 'Oh yes, that's where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned' as though it's something quite normal and unexciting).

Back in Edinburgh, I had a few hours to kill before the Tattoo started, so I wandered up the Royal Mile, looked in a few souvenir shops, and found a place for dinner. I ended up eating Kurdish food, of all things, because the restaurant was close to Edinburgh Castle, smelled divine when I walked past it, and wasn't as full as the traditional Scottish restaurants in the same area. I wasn't entirely sure if I'd like it or not, but in the end it was really nice and I was glad I'd chosen it. I've no idea what I had, so I couldn't order it again in a heartbeat, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. The only problem was that the waitress was a bit dippy (I never did get the mango sorbet I ordered for dessert - I think she forgot about it), but I guess it's better that the waitress is dippy than that the chef is.

Afterwards, it was time to join the queue to get into the Military Tattoo (and an enormous queue it was, too). I'd bought a poncho and a cap earlier, because of the rain; it wasn't raining while we lined up, but there were plenty of clouds overhead and I didn't want to risk missing the show because I was focused on how wet and miserable I was getting. They shuffled us all in pretty efficiently, given the number of people, and I found my seat; as I'd expected, it was one of the cheaper seats (right up the back - there were only two rows behind us), but the view was still good and we could see everything.

The performances were amazing - pipe bands, marching bands, fireworks, a lone piper, etc. There was a marching band from Singapore which had a cool Chinese-style dragon dancing in front of them, Scottish and Canadian highland dancers, and a performance of military bands from all over the world massed together (including an Australian Rats of Tobruk Memorial Pipe Band). The best two performances, in my opinion, were a marching troop from New Zealand and a military drill group from Norway. Apparently, marching is quite a popular organised 'sport' for girls in NZ; I was prepared to find them a bit boring, but what they did was amazing. I can't describe it all - and won't try to - but there was one bit when they were all marching in rows, each row crossing the next perfectly with no collisions. Oh yes, did I mention - they were marching *backwards* at the time! The Norwegian one was even better; they had a military band, plus a group of young soldiers (mostly 19-20 year olds doing their year of compulsory military service) with rifles. This drill group marched around like clockwork soldiers, using the rifles as props. For example, one point they stood in one long line, and shoulder arms, one after the other, so that you could see a ripple of rifles flowing from one end of the line to the other. Again, it's hard to describe, but it was amazing to see. There was even an American marching band (complete with a cheerleader in skimpy, sparkly outfit, tossing batons; all I could think while I was watching her was how bloody cold she must have been).

In addition to the performances, there were fireworks periodically being let off, and lighting was directed at the face of the castle. Sometimes it was red, sometimes green, sometimes blue; when an Indian marching band was performing, it was decorated with a pattern of spots and swirls that somehow made you think of the Taj Mahal. At the end, we all sang Auld Lang Syne, and stood for the Scottish national anthem. I couldn't believe how quickly it went; the performance lasts for an hour and a half, but it didn't feel like even half that time had passed.

The only downside was the weather; it was overcast the whole time and rained on us from about the halfway point onwards. It wasn't cold, though, because the seats (at least where I was) are so tightly packed together that you don't have room to be cold. As an illustration of how tightly packed we were, about half an hour before the end, Dad happened to send me a text message. I felt it come in (I had the phone on vibrate) but there was no way I could get it out of my pocket without getting far friendlier with the old lady next to me than either of us would have been comfortable with. Unfortunately, my phone is a terribly helpful little beast, and persisted in reminding me every few minutes that I had an unread message, until at last the show was over and I could stand up and get the wretched thing out of my pocket...

That's about all for now; I'm in Inverness at the moment, having just hiked up from the train station in the rain (naturally, I managed to find the longest possible route to do so; at least on the way out I'll know which way not to go!). I'm about to head off in pursuit of some dinner, then it'll be another early night as tomorrow I have a day trip to the Orkney Islands which starts at 7:15am.