The Bard...

First of all, happy 100^th Birthday Julia Child!

A few loose ends...

It occurred to me that I didn’t say much about one of the (many) Scottish national heroes, Robert Burns.  Although there are many more (Bonnie Prince Charlie, Robert the Bruce, etc.), it seems that Robert Burns has a special place in the hearts of most Scots.  I may get in trouble here with some of my more historically literate friends, but he was kind of the Mark Twain of Scotland.  He was an iconoclast, and wrote many poems (pronounced po – EMS in the local dialect) and was called (among other things), the Bard of Ayrshire.  One of his more famous poems, Address to A Haggis, is now legendary and gave rise to the dish’s consumption on Robert Burns night dinners, celebrated annually on January 25^th.  It begins with this first verse:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace

(etc.)

We visited a couple of places that were important in his life.  The first was on our first day of the trip (same day we arrived in the bleary eyed morning).  We stopped at Mauchline, where Robert lived in the 1780’s and where he wrote many poems and songs.  Mauchline is a quaint little town with a museum in the place where he lived for a while.  Our group was met by one of the senior members of the local Burns Society who gave us a little talk Burn’s life and time in Mauchline.

It seems that old Robert had quite an affinity for the ladies, and had many liaisons and miscellaneous children which we won’t go into here.  After the little lecture, went into the little church where Robert would have attended services, and our guide showed some of the pieces that would have been used.

One of the other things he showed us was an actual book which chronicled some of the tribulations of Robert and his ladies that were addressed in the church (dating back to late 18^th century).  He proudly displayed the book holding it in his hands turning pages for us to see the names.   We were invited to come up to the front and see for ourselves, whereupon MFO immediately stormed the alter and informed him that he ought to be wearing gloves!!  After that blew over we toured a little more of the churchyard and surrounding village.

They have such neat places

Upon leaving Mauchline we drove to that night’s overnight destination of Ayr.  A pleasant place.  This is where I was introduced to the practice that I was to see throughout the rest of the journey (and may have commented on it before).  I strode to the bar and asked if they had any special scotch.  Why yes, they did: one that was distilled locally.  Well, then I’ll have one with an ice cube.  The barkeep produced a glass and a jigger and poured a carefully measured portion of maybe a half ounce that barely coated the bottom of the glass. (I think I did say this before).  Make it a double.  Maybe two sips.

The next day we visited

It’s kind of divided into two parts, a new sleek visitor center and also a museum in his home

They always do a nice job with displays in these places.  Very informative.

We found out that there was to be a little talk on Burns in one of the meeting rooms in the visitor center so we went over and listened to part of that.  There was a very engaging guy there (whose name I didn’t write down), of course who recited many of Robert’s poems, some even in dress

He also sang some songs (and here hopefully is a technological breakthrough for the Bottom Feeder - disclaimer, this is the first time i've tried this so qualtiy may suffer...)

389.mov

It is left to the listener to try to figure out what the hell he is saying.  It is English, by the way, just as historically spoken.

After a while you kind of get enough Burns, but he is part of the amazing fabric of Scotland

Looks like maybe he was

DFD