This was the first time in Scotland for Big Ben, Raven and Rune, and, unfortunate as it may seem, I can’t say that they really saw that much of it. The bad weather from England had followed us on our journey north and plagued us for the whole Scottish weekend, meaning that we spent a fair amount of time lurking around Livi waiting for dry spells in which we could get a session going. There was no meandering on the Royal Mile, no visits to Edinburgh Castle, no afternoon outing to Kelvingrove Art Gallery, no one attempted to find Nessie and I don’t think any of the crew so much as laid eyes on a single haggis. Ben did manage to purchase a bag of haggis -flavoured crisps from Asda in Livi though, so all was not lost.

Surprisingly, this was also Rune’s first ever visit to Livi. What with his ties to the UK via the Deathbox/Flip connection, I think a lot of people just assumed that he must’ve made the pilgrimage to West Lothian at some point over the years, but apparently not. As he’d never been to Scotland before, I think it’s safe to assume that this was also Rune’s first exposure to the Gaelic language, which he stumbled upon during the first evening in the hotel whilst trying to enjoy late night football highlights.

“So…what language do they speak in Scotland?”

Sam’s got a real knack for stick and poke tattooing; if you look at his Instagram, over the course of the summer it seems like he was rifling off a good two or three tattoos a week, and each one was incredibly detailed and painstakingly pieced together over hours of intense dot work. Sam doesn’t just tattoo anything on anyone either – if he doesn’t like the idea, it won’t be happening. After skating Livi until late on the Saturday night, Sam had to retire back to the hotel to get to work on a tattoo for his mate Haz who had moved to Scotland from their native Norfolk and had connected with Sam earlier in the day. He’d already given life to a Guinness toucan earlier in the trip, and two nights later was back at it again for Haz’s moon. Seriously, go have a look for yourself – @stew_bacca – if you’re into stick and poke tattoos, you won’t be disappointed.

Saul is a little lad from Glasgow with loud trucks, a bag of transition ammo that far surpasses his handful of years, and the ability to learn all his tricks ‘correctly’. Saul was in the mix for both days of sessioning at Livi, alongside the likes of Aaron Wilmot, Charles Myatt, Adam Paris and Stu Graham, and we even managed to coax Benson into joining us for a brief spell as well. As is always the way at Livi, the locals ensured the session was a lively one, keeping the booze flowing, the BBQ smouldering and throwing encouragement at anyone who required it. The only time Saul stopped skating was to fire up Instagram Live and keep the rest of the waiting world updated as to what was going on at Livi, but luckily he didn’t manage to broadcast anything to his followers that was too hard fought for. Check the steez on this halfpipe number then keep a watchful eye on this one over the years to come – the future is bright, skates fast and wears geggs…

Raven had waited the whole trip to get to Scotland, and once there he wasted no time at all in getting immersed into the Scottish way of life. The first thing he needed was to find Div and his black Astra van, once safely inside Div’s wagon he then needed to locate a bottle of Irn Bru, then lastly, a bottle of Buckfast. With those three essentials ticked off, Raven was just about ready for his inaugural visit to Livi.

“Get Buck! Once you make it to the label, don’t try to skate”

The back wall at Livi is the last place you’d want to find yourself if you’d drunk past the label on a bottle of Bucky. Luckily I think Raven was fast approaching the legal limit at this point in the session.