Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland

Familiar figures whirl around me, their countless shadows sprayed liberally across whitewashed walls. The light comes raining down from two immense candelabras surrounded by red coats of arms, these adorned by more finery in the form of painted wooden spears. Down below the band is about to start again, the musicians trooping back amid socialites crowding the dance floor with their Smalltalk and glasses of Champaign. The great and the good, close friends and acquaintances, hundreds of people fill the “Coo Cathedral”, that grand palace of a barn in rural Aberdeenshire, they fill it with laughter and merriment, gathered here today for the annual Abboyn Ball.

Suddenly as groups of friends eagerly scrawl on dance cards, introduce each other and try to make up for lost time a fiddle is drawn. A single fiddle yet the noise turns to a murmur and from the front comes a calm voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places for the reel of the 51st division.”

White Tie and Evening wear, elegant dresses sweeping the ground as their wearers form long lines down the dance floor. Kilts in uncountable tartans and sporrans made out of unidentifiable animal heads with staring glass eyes. Both dresses and kilts move slightly as the men bow and the women curtsy, step forward….

In this last moment I walk quickly through the gathering crowd searching for the partner I have completely lost, a very sweet girl from England who I hope is also trying to find me. As the music starts and with my partner still absent, a wide eyed and slightly unnerving young woman completely unknown to me (who had seconds ago announced herself taken) decides she has been abandoned and I lead her into line.

…..The music starts and years of practice take over:

Forward step, bounce bums with my partner, cast off one (go behind the man next to me) set to my partner and quickly clap my hands before spinning her.

Mental instructions fly though my head as I look at my partner and try to remember her name. Next to me is James and further down Sam, both dancing with glamorous friends of ours clad in pashminas and expensive jewellery. As we spin each other the dancers whoop and stamp, laughter fills everything, more champagne corks are popped and I catch the faint smell of breakfast from somewhere off the dance floor.

Going back to school it is the dances I remember most. Leading girls by the arm, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, Rose’s laugh as the line disintegrates around us and dancers wheel erratically in every direction. James doing press ups in the middle of a circle to the angry stares of the older generation. We dance and flirt, laughing and making the most of this day for there are precious few times when we see each other, the youth of upper-class Aberdeenshire however much we deny it.

This time though, as the final dance ends and God Save the Queen is sung, all is not as jolly inside my head. All that I have just written about, the grandeur and the expensive tickets, it all contradicts with the way I try to live outside the U.K. I guiltily think of what Mama Mendoza in Guatemala would think of all this wasted wealth, money that could go into the community or something useful, or even what my school friends would say if they saw me here. In the end of the day of course, I am not going to renounce this life, these friends and this way of living. Instead I do my service work, visit poor countries, write my blog and keep each contradicting compartment in my life completely separate from the rest.