Meet Report

13th to 15th November 2009 - Killin Hotel (Price includes Dinner), Killin (Dinner Meet)

The annual dinner meet was well attended this year with 25 club members spending the weekend at the Killin hotel.   Amazingly, the bar stayed open until we went to bed on both nights, leading to a flurry of whisky drinking in the early hours.  In spite of this and the uninspiring weather forecast that involved large amounts of wind, torrential rain and low cloud, club members dutifully headed off out to get appropriately wet and cold whilst gazing at cloud molecules, as not much else could be seen.

Older and wiser club members (which is just about all of us now I come to think of it) selected from a  cast of Graham sized bumps, while more ambitious folk tackled nearby Munros .  Either way exercise was obtained and in the case  of myself, Chris, Anne and Gillian the second Graham climbed presented a near vertical challenge at the start that justified the 3 course meal to follow later without any difficulty.   Alarming reports were received later on in the hotel bar of several independent sightings of bright yellow sheep.  This was good news for yours truly as it belied earlier rumours on previous meets that Anne C . and I had been having hallucinations. 

The meal itself was enjoyable and I only had to refer to my cheat sheet of who had ordered what for the usual suspects (yes Bill C - that means you).  The Hon Pres then gave all present the choice between silence and a speech that had nothing to do with the EMC.  Speech we all cried!  He then treated us to a complex tale involving a Finnish industrialist buying up huge tracts of Norway for the purpose of reindeer hunting after seeing what the upper classes did in Scottish glens, in whose hut the famous Finn (whose name I have of course completely forgotten) had carved his initials that Bill B later saw when skiing in his youth ....( I think that was it anyway.....).    Can't say we weren't warned!  There then followed another session in the bar featuring more of the bottle of Caol Ila that had taken a bit of a dent the night before and a protracted debate on the exact location of various mountains with reference to the A85 owing to Geoff Monk's mountain weather forecast citing it as a line to stay to the North of to avoid more rain soaked buffeting on the following day.

The following morning another massive breakfast was consumed prior to a little gentle hill walking followed it seemed by a mandatory visit to the Glen Lyon tea room which by 2 o'clock contained at least 7 EMC members stuffing their faces with soup, scones, apple cake etc.   Very good it was too.

Alison W