Tags: Burns Night, Glasgow, church, home
Date: 25 January 2006 23:40:34
While the Aussie wibloggers are just about now (I guess) waking up to 26th Jan Australia Day (have a good one, guys!) I'm just in from my first Burns Supper to celebrate Scotland's most famous poet, Robbie Burns. It wasn't the most traditional Burns Supper I understand, more an informal get-together of songs and poetry readings which my church does every year. However, we did have the traditional Address to a Haggis (Burns would probably turn in his grave at the thought of the veggie haggis that I had!), not to mention a fine dramatic (and very very funny) reading of the savage and satirical Holy Willie's Prayer, and I've discovered a few poems that I'd like to get to know better (and, maybe in a few years, manage to understand!!!), particularly his Epigrams which I found very amusing. I think my favourite song/poem though was Ae Fond Kiss - probably because underneath it all I'm hopelessly sentimental.
I think this is also the first year that I've managed to sing all the verses to "Auld Lang Syne" and get the words of the chorus right (one of the church members was laughing at and moaning about the way the English add "for the sake of auld lang syne" when "the sake of" never ever appeared in the poem - and I had to admit that I had always sung "for the sake of auld lang syne" as I'd never known any different. I didn't admit that after the first verse my friends and I often sing a very silly alternative called "How Green You Are" which has also passed into legend as one of the silliest party games ever, but which comes in handy when you don't know the real words). There was a wee bit of English ribbing, but on the whole I think I got let off quite lightly!
I also discovered that one man in my church was born in a tenement flat in my street, 3 doors away. He was telling me about how the middle of the street was full of air raid shelters during the war, and how the trains were all steam when he was a boy, and how the wall separating the street from the train station is now twice as high as it used to be because they had to raise it following the electrification of the railways. I hadn't noticed that before, but coming home I could clearly see the different bricks in the top half of the wall. He said that he remembered his old flat as being very similar to the Tenement House, one of Glasgow's attractions which is also on my list of touristy places to visit - it's a tenement flat with furnishings and decor etc preserved from about 100 years ago. He seemed really pleased that I lived there, so I suspect I'll hear lots of tales of the street from him.
I also bumped into one of my neighbours on the way back into the flat, who told me that the other day she had come home late and found that someone had crapped ("Not just water" as she delicately put it) in our communal front doorway a couple of nights ago. Fortunately it had been cleaned up before I ever saw it, but I guess it just goes to show that however much you might like an area, there's always someone prepared to bring it down. Sigh - I don't think I'll be telling the guy from church about that, I'll let him keep his romantic notions of the street a bit longer!