burns supper

We hosted an entertaining Burns Supper on Friday night. Along with the address to the haggis piped in by our downstair’s neighbour (and which proved to be quite tasty) many Burns poems (my personal favourite being the epic Tam ‘o Shanter accompanied by howling wind and a crackling fire) and even some late night singing. The highlight was the address to the , at very late notice and performed beautifully by our friend Jude. She has kindly permitted me to reproduce it here (all copyrights retained etc etc) – it captures the Glasgow patios perfectly – let me know if you need a translation ๐Ÿ˜‰

—————————————-

Tae the Laddies – Judith Williams
/

The notice tae toast ye’s, wis affy wee,

A toast tae the laddies, michty me.

/

Witherin’ aboot the lads is nae herd when they cannae hear,

But takin’ aboot them’s different, frum when they’re here.

/

The best o men are hard tae beat,

And the worst oh men dae the beatin’,

There’s the kind that leave their ladies wahrm,

And the kind that leaves them greetin’.

/

There’s lads wi fitball fetishes and lads that like tae fight,

Don’t bore us wi the scores lads – fur we dinnae gie a shite!

But even if they’re drunk and fat,

A mans a man fur aw that.

/

Some men are bound tae wind ye up, and some’ll let ye doon,

Snoring, steaming, mockit or moanin’ in the toon.

/

Just gonnae no say that cauld is flu or that your flu is cancer,

Ye’ll reduce yer sympathy tenfold and be known as a chancer.

/

And if yer efter nookie then hear’s a thoucht an aw,

The daen o the dishes is bound tae go down braw!

/

Aye, there’s they wans wi potential, if they’d only chinge their tune,

But dinnae hang oan tae long cause they may well let ye doon.

/

There’s fellas that’ll wind ye up and get’ ye wild tormented,

And then turn the charm back oan that drives ye pure demented.

/

An’ laddies here’s a handy hint – if ye’ve kept us waiting hoors,

Just gie us a kiss and a compliment and a braw wee bunch o’ floers.

/

Oh aye, sometimes it’s herd tae be a wummin,

Gien aw yer love tae just wan maun,

Ye’ll hae rotten times, and he’ll hae braw times,

Daen things that ye cannae unn’er ston.

/

Bu’ when ye love ‘im, ye’ll forgive ‘im,

Even though he’s herd tae undersaun,

An’ if ye luv ‘im, oh be proud o’ him,

‘Cause efter aw, he;s jist a maun.

/(sings)

Staun by yer maun,

Gie him twa airms tae cling tae,

An something wahrm tae cling tae,

When nichts are cauld an lanely.

/(sings)

Staun by yer maun,

And show ra world ue luv him,

Keep gien aw the luv ye cun,

Staun by yer maun.

/(spoken)

Masel’ ahm lucky tae be luved by a fine upstandin laddie,

Am glad tae tell ye that a’ve foon a goodie nae a baddie,

Aw men are bastards ah’l nae say yince,

Though ah’ve had a few toadies afore a foon ma prince.

/

Ah’d recommend it ladies ah don’t mean tae turn ye green,

But just haud oan tae the guid wans fur there few and faur between.

/

Roon and birly, skinny and saft,

Laddies are braw and laddies are daft,

Tae sum them up is affy herd,

The drunks, the widos and the lairds.

/

An’ tae the laddies gathered here,

We gie you thanks and gie a cheer,

Fur aw are braw and aw are rare,

Ah hope a huvnae been unfair.

/

Sae raise yer glasses lassies an’ gie the men a cheer,

We’re affy glad tae ken ye, it’s braw tae huv ye near.

/

A toast tae laddies.

walking the kelvin: north kelvinside to garscube

kelvin 2

To get to our allotment we can simply head up the Kelvin which runs past our flat via the botanic gardens and through some of the less salubrious areas of Maryhill with tags extorting the value of various ‘young teams’. While it is a bit grey at the moment in summer I think it will be quite beautiful and some of the abandoned infrastructure is stunning in an overgrown, deralict manner.

kelvin 1

allotted an allotment

allotment 01
Our friends Lyn & Craig had delivered a bounty of produce from their allotment last summer, converting a decrepit plot into a functioning garden. However the purchase of a house in the ‘burbs with its attendant garden had lead them to share their space with us this year. The allotments sit on a hill on the outskirts of Glasgow further up the Kelvin from our place and give a bizzarre shanty town appearance from the road. (above)
When the Allotment manager heard we were sharing however he allocated us a new plot – easily double the size of their old spot, and with another bunch of renovations required (so much for a reduced workload)! Despite losing all the hard work Lyn in particular had undertaken on the old plot we decided to take on the new project, so our summer is to be filled with digging, planting and on a more architectural note rennovating the existing somewhat decrepit shed (below). So expected to be rivetted by tales of compost, seedlings, greenhouse construction & (most importantly) harvest over the coming months!
allotment 02

forth & clyde canal: maryhill to possil marsh

forth & clyde - maryhill

With a rare combination of sunshine and an early rise we explored more of the Forth & Clyde canal on our first weekend back this year. Winding through the somewhat seedy industrial past of Maryhill (below), through the less than salubrious Possil – avoiding some of its more famous residents – we made it past theร‚ย  outskirts of Glasgow to Possil Marsh before in true Scottish walking tradition the weather turned nasty hastening our retreat.

maryhill warehouse

5th party of christmas: hogmanay

edinburgh hogmanay

Sorry for the absence – Chhay has been hogging the ‘puter looking up real estate as our landlord is selling our fabulous flat ๐Ÿ™

To recount, a brace of Chhay’s french relatives popped over across the new year to briefly take in the delights of Glasgow and the heady atmosphere of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.

On a damp and gloomy day we did an extensive walking tour of Glasgow, including Chhay’s first visit to Glasgow uni (below) which dominates the view from our windows.

university from wilton st

Hogmenay was as I expected, busy damp and and a little bit dull (especially as I was driving). We did catch a rather drunken set from King Creosote who we had been meaning to see for a while, but apart from that and the fireworks the evening mainly seemed to consist of queuing in the rain. Once we got back to Glasgow we had much more fun blethering over our friends kitchen table till the early hours of the morning.

While the weather is rarely accommodating Scots are definitely up for a party for Hogmanay – even as we were leaving at rather too close to 5 o’clock in the morning on New Year’s Day there were several parties still going strong in the neighbourhood.

dunoon

dunoon

Our only small escape over the Christmas break was for a couple of days to Dunoon – a small former seaside holiday town on the Firth of Clyde very similar to Rothesay (including being home to a new jmarchitects school).

holy loch

We stayed at a colleague’s little cottage in a village called Sandbank on the outskirts of town and despite fairly awful weather managed a couple of walks along Holy Loch (above) through Puck’s Glen (below) to the local botanic gardens.dunoon

We had a few hours wandering around the town centre (especially when we missed the ferry back) but for some strange reason struggled to find the usually ubiquitous fish & chips anywhere!

4th party of christmas: it's a wonderful life

it's a wonderful life

Continuing our partyish season up to Christmas, our friends Mike & Emma took us all to catch up on the famous Christmas tale ‘It’s A Wonderful Life”, which by some quirky twist of fate (or general avoiding of Christmas movies) none of us had seen before. Our favourite movie watching institution the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre) puts this 1946 movie on every day for at least two weeks, every Christmas!

In the final wash it was great – slapping on the sentimentality layer by layer, with not a dry eye in the house by the end. Although aparently having seen it 10 time previously, as most of the audience seemed to have done, only increases the effect.

pintxos

We followed the movie with a choice discovery of a fantastic new basque restaurant called Pintxos in supposed new dining hotspot of Thornwood (I couldn’t acutually see anything else open at the time), before chilling out in front of a roaring fire at Mike’s sisters Christmas party at her fantastic new house in the somewhat gritty southern suburb of Govan.

2nd party of christmas: ice skating in george square

skating

Apologies for the lack of posts – I haven’t actually been busy just never got around to posting while relaxing through the break. A few catch up posts from before Christmas should follow this one.

Having kicked off our 12 parties of Christmas season with our hall party we followed up with a much milder event – dodging the hordes of neds while circumnavigating one of George Square’s many statues on ice. Imbued with mulled wine and heartened by clear skies it was great fun circling the Scott Monument for half an hour despite the crappy ice and packed arena.