The rest of the week

Back to normal again this week, on Tuesday I did my morning stint in the British Heart Foundation charity shop.  I’m keeping an eye open for kilt skirts that have been donated for sale, that could be useful for choir members, but I never seem to find any to fit me!  I need a long tartan skirt now, for the social occasions – it’s short skirts for competitions; long for concerts and ceilidhs! 

This is the Inglis family tartan.  Based on the Douglas clan tartan it has additional red and yellow stripes.

Anyway, I found a small size short kilt skirt in our shop, and later got a long one, still too small for me, at another charity shop in town!  I think I should sell these at a profit and give the extra to the choir funds.  One or two of us were saying that as it cost so much to go to the Mod, it would be good if there could be a bit of a financial help from the choir funds!

My late friend, Vina’s, sister-in-law joined the volunteer staff at the shop  on Tuesday.  Ann and her husband Robin emigrated to South Africa in the 1960s, and have fairly recently returned to Scotland, both retired now, and have settled in Peebles.  Both their sons have heart problems so Ann has an affinity with the charity, and decided to become a volunteer.  She’ll be there the same day as me, so I’ll no doubt see a lot of her.  I still miss Vina such a lot.  This last few days there have been several occasions when I have thought – I wish I could tell Vina that.  She’d have been really interested.

In the evening I drove out to Newbattle Abbey for Part 3 of our Gaelic course!  We’re learning quite a bit, and Deirdre reckons we are all doing very well.  The idea is to listen and repeat what we are hearing the tutor saying, but I like to write it down using my own phonetic method, but writing anything down at this stage is frowned upon!  We’re supposed to be learning like children do – repeating what we hear – but I’m not good at learning that way!  Deirdre and I had a bit of a discussion about it later, putting our points across, and I guess I’m going to have to compromise here!

  Lunch on Wednesday with the U3A lunch  Group was meant to be at a lovely little inn at Carlops, below the Pentland Hills, but plans had to be changed fairly much at the last minute when an email was sent to the organiser, Anne, to say that they couldn’t do lunch after all, as the chef had walked out in a strop!  Oops!  The chef was the owner’s son!  So instead, we met at a local pub, where we had a nice meal, and a good blether, as well as being entertained by Martin, the barman and waiter’s wacky sense of humour!   It was a bitterly cold day too, though the sun was shining .  Someone said they had had to scrape frost off their car windscreen in the morning!  Oh this is too early for winter to be setting in!   Please let us have some milder weather, with some sun!  Usually milder weather in autumn means damp, dull and miserable – in a word, dreich, so frosty might actually be the better option!  At least we get sun and blue sky!

Colin was on phone in the evening.  He’s off to a Greek island on Saturday for six weeks!  Six!  Alright for some!  He and some mates are going rock-climbing on Kalymnos.  There’s a video here of Colin climbing in England, if you are interested!   Morag texted me to tell me her friend Lorna has passed her driving test!  She’s been going out with Lorna in the car in the evenings to give her some practice, so it has all paid off. 

Tonight some of the choir members got together to mull over some Gaelic work songs, mainly to do with fulling or waulking new tweed fabric.  These jobs need to have a rhythm to them so singing was used to keep in time.  I joined in too tonight.  One person sings the verses, and everyone joins in the chorus.  The verses are often only one or two lines so there is a lot of chorus repetition.  Good fun!  Click here to see a U-tube video of a waulking song, and here for another, but sung by a folk band instead of at work.  Oh, before I forget!  Here’s a video from youtube of the choirs parade through Thurso!  I’m in it!  So are Neil, Hilary, Lisa, Nuala and Finlay, all cousins of mine!

So I have finally caught up with things this week.  I don’t think I have anything very exciting planned for the weekend, but you never know what can happen.  Maybe I’ll have some more photos next time too.

Talk again soon.