Outlander comes to Fife - Part 1. Or, how I turned into an Outlander Fan Girl

I would like to start off this blog entry by stating that I am a normal person.

Okay, that may be something of an exaggeration, but I am a fully functioning member of society. I’m not a stalker, deranged or otherwise, and I’ve never had the occasion to meet anyone famous before. And I’ve certainly never had the inclination to go fan-girl crazy before.

But that was before…

It all started on May 25th when I found out that Outlander was filming in our town.

Holy macaroni! How exciting! Nothing like this ever happens in Fife. And just 5 minutes from my house on my usual dog walking route - this couldn’t get any better.

*Okay breathe. Just breathe.*

The plan was simple. Over the next few days I would increase my daily dog walks to the point of ridiculousness, trying to get a glimpse of, well, anything remotely Outlanderish.

At first my Tilly was excited by the exercise… but she soon realised that while we went on the walk, it would take triple the usual time to complete the circuit as I stood generally spent the time hanging around and looking at “stuff”. Barrels, carts, lights, boats, green screens, people in kilts - if it wasn’t nailed down then I was taking a picture of it!

Over the next few days my wee camera got quite a workout when I was able to get out and about. When I wasn’t, I asked my Dad to walk the same route as I would usually and take photos of whatever he could see. Bless his cotton socks, he got some great shots and became an Outlander internet legend!!! *Snort*

 Then May 28th came and everything became a bit more real. This is when I realised that I was no longer just enjoying Outlander and the fact they were filming in my town - I had become a teeny tiny bit obsessed!

I realised my craziness was on the increase when this happened:

So much for being a fully functioning member of society - here I was running through the trees, arms flailing, battle cries resounding, with a look of crazed desperation on my face. *Yep - time to send for the men in white coats!*

Not to worry:

 

So this pattern continued for a couple of days - me pretending that I was ‘simply walking my dog’ when I was actually using her as a cover story to have a sneaky peak of what was going on in Dysart harbour.

By this time the fact that Outlander were filming in the area had reached the local press and there were many more people out to have a peak. It was quite an exciting buzz. I’m going to blame that excitement for the fact that I found myself in a pitch black forest in the dead of night (11pm is the dead of night for me!) with a bunch of random strangers with cameras.

Lordy - that sounds even worse written down than it did in my head.

I was reaching a pitch of excitement when filming actually started even though I was bloody well at work on the first day! Damn this need to feed, clothe, house and look after myself! So irritating!

I got home the first day of filming to an envelope with a memory stick inside.

Inside was this photo:

Squeeeeeeeeee!

At this point I should probably explain that over the course of the week, they had been shutting more and more roads around the town near the harbour. By the time filming started, you could be up in the park overlooking the harbour and if you wanted to get down to the front gate it was a fair hike round the town and back down along towards the beach. Normally you could just go right down the path but they were using that for lights and it was a no-go area. However, if you went down to the security gates then you couldn’t see a bit of what was going on on set. A dilemma.

But by the end of that evening I had seen a lot of what I’d wanted to see from up in the park.

I’d seen them filming and got a couple of photographs from far away. I’d met some fun people who were just as excited as me that Outlander was on the east coast. And I’d seen them set up a TV production with their lights, sets and etc and talked to some lovely crew people. What else could a girl possibly want?

Hmmmm…..

Maybe tomorrow.


*Disclaimery bit. These are (obviously) not official photos. I am just a fan who was lapping up the excitement and taking pics for my own (and any other interested folk on Twitter’s) enjoyment. There are loads of other pics out there which show the stars close up - that’s because they’re paparazzi shots (for the most part) and they have ridonculous, high power lenses. We were actually quite far away from the action and understandably so. I’m not out to spoil anything for anyone or stick my neb into people’s personal lives.