1. Where did Joey and his pals go off camping?
2. What was special about the place where they put up their tents?
3. How did they spend the day?
4. What were their plans for the evening?
5. Why did they decide to go across the golf course?
6. What did the course have?
7. What happened when they were marching across it?
8. Did they reach the pub after all?
9. Which way did they get back?
10. What did they see when they got back?
11. What did the area turn out to be?
12. What did they have to do to reach the tents?
13. What was that district famous for?
14. Why is the region so perfect for distilling whisky?
15. What did they buy in a specialised whisky shop?
16. What was it like?
17. What was another place he went camping in Scotland?
18. Why is the Isle of Iona so historically prominent?
19. Why did Saint Columba settle on it?
20. What can you find on the Isle of Iona?
21. What about the sea surrounding it?
22. What is really amazing about the weather there?
23. Where did they camp?
24. What was that part of beach like?
25. What did they do there?
Holidays in Scotland
Training 1
Joey and his pals went off camping in an island off the west coast of Scotland. They arrived by ferry. Then they found a nice place along the seafront, which was a peninsula. When it got dark, they went to a pub. They took a short cut across the golf course, which had some little streams. So, they were marching along, when they fell into one of the streams. They dragged themselves out and continued onwards to the pub.
Training 2
When they finally got back, they couldn’t find the tents, or even the peninsula on which they’d camped. It turned out that the area where they’d set up the tents wasn’t really a peninsula at all, and when the tide came in it became an island. So, the tide had cut them off from their tents. For the second time that evening they got wet feet, as they had to roll up their trousers, take off their shoes and socks and wade across to the tents.
Training 3
At the time he was living in Elgin in the district of Moray, which is in the heart of the whisky distilling area. It has much fertile land for growing barley, and nearby there are hills where there is peat and fresh spring water, which you need to make whisky. So all of the famous whiskies come from there, like Glenfiddich and Glengrant, for example.
Training 4
Another time Joey went camping was on the Isle of Iona. Saint Columba, who brought Christianity to Scotland, founded a monastery there. It’s a very beautiful island, with the monastery, a very nice mediaeval church, and very ancient rocks. And there are some wonderful clean beaches there, with little rock-pools dotted about with little fish, crabs, and starfish in them.
Training 5
They camped in the north-west corner where there is a farmer who lets you camp on a strip of grass next to the beach. It’s a lovely sandy beach with lots of driftwood, so they made a fire there and sat around it cooking soup in an old pot that the farmer lent them and baking potatoes in the fire, drank a bottle of whisky, walked up and down collecting nicely shaped pieces of driftwood and watched the sun set on the horizon.
Fantasy Games
My first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. I immediately got deeply involved in them and started to buy books and materials for playing them. I started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They are really in the story, in that they can change the outcome of the story by their actions, which they explain to the storyteller, who in turn tells them what happens, as well as describing to them what they can see and experience in the game’s world. So, all the players interact within the story, with each other and other characters in the story who the storyteller describes. Usually, the players act the part of the “good guys”, but not always. All the players need is a piece of paper with a description of their character on it, how strong he or she is, how intelligent, how wise, how fast at running, and things like that.