The St. Mary's Ball

Last night I attended the annual St. Mary's Ball. We took over the ballroom in the Old Course Hotel, had a lovely dinner and then... there was.... The Ceilidh!
PS: none of these photos are mine.

Love this picture of Jen as it captures the fun!

It was a black tie event and everyone was dressed up. A good number of the men came in full kilt regalia or tuxes. The women had on lovely dresses. I'm hoping to get some pictures from others to add here. My friend Kathleen picked me up in her car and we drove all of five blocks or so to the hotel because it was very cold and some of the sidewalks were icy.

Dinner was good but the conversation was better. Then the band began to play and one of the 3rd years (undergrad Junior) who is a native Highlander instructed us in the ceilidh (pron: kay-lee) dances. Kathleen and I stayed on the sidelines mostly while the undergrads went wild - literally! Ceilidh dancing is exuberant - think square dancing where the allamand left has a tendency to lift your partner off the floor or imagine Winslow Homer's painting "The Whip."

Penny had had the roses in her hair before she started to dance with Scott but they were soon became a different kind of accessory!

One very nice thing about a ceilidh is that a date or specific partner is not required. Everyone dances with everyone. And I did dance - a relatively slow 'waltz.' By the way, waltz in ceilidh does not mean quick, quick, slow. It's more like a slide forward or a hop or a skip or a few jumps. And then there was the stomping. Every once in a while a dance required you to stomp your feet to the point where I wondered if the floor was going to be able to handle the shock waves.

All in all it was quite fun. Things finally broke up around midnight and when we went to get the car... SNOW WAS EVERYWHERE AND IT WAS ABOUT SIX INCHES DEEP!

The center of town - Market St.

Kathleen and I ended up giving several people rides home - I sat in the back to keep the weight distributed for the tires. Everyone said snow in November was extremely unusual for St. Andrews. Kathleen said, November or not, she'd never seen that amount of snow in St. Andrews! But we all made it home safe and sound and exhausted. Here are a few more pictures I snagged from someone else's facebook page!
I think this is Church St. but, since I didn't take the picture I'm not sure.

Light and fluffy - the way snow should be!

Absolutely deserted streets - even taxi's were taking over an hour to arrive!