Category Archives: Flower of Scotland Friday

Happy Coomanay?

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Last night, @dg4G discovered a something a little strange on his Australian calendar…

I confirmed that his was indeed true. 2nd January is a Bank Holiday in Scotland. Like I said in my previous post, New Year is a huge deal here…big parties and celebrations and traditions on the 31st (known as ‘Hogmanay’) and ‘first footing’ neighbours, friends, family houses from Midnight on the 1st Jan.

So why doesn’t the 2nd January Bank Holiday have a name like ‘Christmas Day’ ‘Boxing Day’ ‘May Day Holiday’ ‘Easter Monday’ and so on?

Well. Um. Yeah.

What is the purpose of having a Bank Holiday on 2nd January AND 1st January, when no one else does? (even South of the border….they go back to work on 2nd!)

Remember how I told you a while ago there were many Scots words for being drunk?

Well, most of us don’t get to sleep until 5/6 a.m. on the 1st January having partied all night. Then around lunchtime we’ll stir, have a good fry up, and continue the party usually visiting family and friends with food and drink and yeah, ending up not getting to bed until the wee hours of 2nd January (for my family we went to bed around 3/4 a.m.).

So we really need that extra day to recover. For most of Scotland, a suitable term would be ‘Hangover Day’. Somehow I don’t think the business world would approve of calling it that, so Scottish bankers just went ‘uh yeah, 2nd January holiday’.

Well, the tweeples (folks on Twitter) weren’t going to stand for that. We decided we needed a name for this extra Scottish Holiday.

Suggestions were made…

And so it was decided that we’d go with @dandanglover ‘s suggestion of the animal theme, changing ‘Cowmanay‘ to ‘Coomanay‘ (after the good ol’ Heelan Coo – or Highland Cow if you’re going to use English-English).

Much cheering was had, the call to ‘go for it‘ was tweeted. And so the tweeples have spoken.

2nd January Holiday will now be known to us as ‘Coomanay’.

Happy Coomanay!

Happy New Year

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New Year is a huge deal in Scotland, our Hogmanay (what we call ‘New Year’s Eve’) celebrations are world famous. The fireballs in Stonehaven, the massive Edinburgh street party (with its tradition of being called off due to gale force winds more than a few times!).

When the bells ring at Midnight (Greenwich Mean Time) there’ll be fireworks from the seven hills of Edinburgh, balls of fire flung into the sea at Stonehaven harbour, the clinking of glasses, cheering, hugging, kissing and the shout of ‘Happy New Year’, the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

apologies to Sarah, as we sang this in the traditional fashion at her 30th birthday ceilidh earlier this year…

Tomorrow morning there’ll be drinking of irn bru and eating of fry ups to cure many hangovers, people jumping in the North Sea for the New Year’s Day loony dook underneath the Forth Bridges and people ‘first footing’ friends and family. The act of bringing food/drink to the home as a symbol of blessing the New Year.

And yes, I got a bit of a Hogmanay miracle…a letter from my Dad. The first communication he has made with me since my 24th birthday.

So to everyone, Happy New Year. May the year 2010 be filled with excitement, blessing, learning and most of all, love.

Christmas is coming…

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Ok, so I’ll stop judging the people who already have their Christmas decorations up now…because today is December 1st.

I said it last year, and I’ll say it again this year – Edinburgh is one of the best places to live at this time of year. The German Christmas Market, the Christmas tree on the Mound, all the Hogmanay celebrations from 29th Dec-Jan 1st…I love it! I am going to work on getting plenty of pics this year, and may even go back to Spaghetti Bay to get a picture of THE house one night.

And will I record myself reading out ‘The Night Before Christmas’ in my Scottish accent as was requested last year? Um…is that not weird?

Here are a few photograpic highlights from Christmas/Hogmanay last year.

St Andrew’s Day Blog Carnival

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Today, it’s all about Scotland and St Andrew’s Day. This year is a little bit more special because of Homecoming 2009. Lots of historical sites have been free entry all this week including Edinburgh Castle!

Edinburgh Castle

I do love being Scottish. I love that we seem to be a nation that has a achieved a lot of great things – Scots have had a hand in pneumatic tyres to penicillin to pain relief in childbirth (woo!) to basketball to the Bank of England (oh, the irony)

I love that pretty much anywhere I’ve been in the world, I’ve been welcomed as a Scot. My Uncle Ivor (who lives in Australia) told me a story of how he once asked in a Parisian hotel for some directions – they wouldn’t give him any because they thought he was English at first, but when they discovered he was a Scotsman living in Australia they suddenly became super-helpful. I love that we have our Scottish banknotes. I love that men here are comfortable enough in their sexuality to wear a kilt (with no underwear). I love that here, coca cola isn’t the #1 drink, it takes 2nd place to Irn Bru. I love it went people try and do Scottish accents. I think Hollywood’s take on Scottish history is hysterical (sorry to break it to you, but Braveheart isn’t quite how it happened). And if they do make us stop singing Flower of Scotland at sporting events because it’s ‘racist’ I’m pretty sure there’ll be a revolution. I love the Scots words and phrases like wee, numpty, ‘Yer Ma!’ and clarty. And we’ve been blessed with some beautiful landscapes.

I don’t like how in English soaps, the Scottish dude is always the ‘bad guy’. Seriously, like every single time!  And you know, it would be nice to experience some warm sunshine a little more often. And the long dark winters are a bit of a drag. And I get a wee bit annoyed when I go to places and they say ‘Scotland, that’s in England yes?’ (No). And I have been the Scottish person who has come to someone’s aid in a shop outside of Scotland and gone ‘Excuse me, but I’ll think you’ll find that’s legal tender. It’s still the pound, it’s not monopoly money‘. I also find it amusing and a little frustrating that people assume I’ll know everyone in Scotland because you know it’s such a tiny country. It’s small but not that small.

But when I land at Edinburgh Airport or see the ‘Welcome to Scotland’ sign on the Scottish/English border, my heart always lifts. Especially when I see the words in Scots Gaelic too!

Even though I’m usually seeing the sight through sheets of pouring rain!

I don’t know what you think of when you think of Scotland, but I’m looking forward to reading other people’s posts today.

If you have a post, please give me a link by e-mail or comment below and I’ll add it to the list. Don’t forget to tell folks on Twitter with the #scotlandrocks hashtag! :)

Here are some of them:

Initial Conditions

The State That I Am In

Learning to Love

Dan on Music

Ruthy’s Ramblings

Musings of a Scot

Thinking out Loud

From Africa, With Love

Fran Brady’s blog

Caledonia

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Yep, we’re getting excited about St Andrew’s Day…I know of 3 blogging friends that plan to be part of the St Andrew’s Day blog carnival.

Hoping some more folks will be joining in with us on Monday, and looking forward to seeing what people decide to do – it can be anything as long as it is some way relating to the bonnie land of Scotland.

If you’d like to help spread the word on Twitter, Carolyn has decided on the hashtag #scotlandrocks :)

Flower of Scotland Friday: The deep fried mars bar

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**before I begin, I haven’t forgotten my promise of a ‘fashion’ Americanese to British/Scottish translator…only I need some people willing to be photographed. clothed. Partly because I’m not a guy, and therefore don’t own guy clothes. And my wardrobe is mainly jeans…so need some girl clothes too.**

This week, it’s all about the unhealthy ‘Scottish’ diet. I hesitate to write this post, because while yes, we are the nation who invented the deep fried mars bar (patented in a chippie in Stonehaven) I don’t know any Scottish person who eats them.

But in August when my friend Mike brought his girlfriend, Kelly up to Edinburgh we felt duty bound to let her try out this Scottish delicacy.

Behold….the deep fried snickers bar…

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Does it look appetising to you?

No. It doesn’t to me either. It looks greasy and gross, and the sort of thing that would just sit in your stomach making you feel bleurgh for at least a couple of days.

But Kelly and Mike ate it anyway…

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My friend who was in my Geography class at uni, used to work in a chippie in Orkney. He informed once that after some experimenting with all the sweets available behind the counter (one of each kind I mean) apparently the only sweeties you can’t deep fry are Chewits.

Just in case you were wondering.

And for the record, Kelly felt bleurgh after eating the deep fried snickers bar, and doesn’t ever want to eat a deep fried chocolatey sweetie ever again.

Flower of Scotland Friday: ‘Therr’s been a murrdurr’

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I wasn’t sure what to do for a Flower of Scotland Friday post this week, until Love replied to a comment I’d made on one of his posts. Much like when my blog friend Sarah talks about Alabama, I automatically hear that Southern accent in my head, Love heard what I said in the accent of those in the Weegieland (Glasgow) because of Taggart.

I used to watch Taggart when I was wee. Highly inappropriate viewing for a primary school aged child no doubt…those weegies sure are violent! But every time someone was murdered, one of those charming young police officers from Maryhill CID (the Scottish version of City Homicide I guess) would go up to Mark McManus aka Chief Inspector Taggart and say

‘Therr’s been a murrdurr” (There’s been a murder‘)

Annoyingly I have not been able to find a clip from Taggart where they say this, but have found a clip from another show where David Tennant does a spookily good impersonation of it.

One very tedious claim to fame, the last episode of Taggart to be filmed with Mark McManus, the house used for the scene of the murder was my Mum’s friend’s house. The murder was someone who got electrocuted in a swimming pool if I remember correctly…

And although it’s not old school…here’s a wee flavour from 2002

“This isn’t the movies son, this is a murrdurr enquiry!” ahhh…classic…

Flower of Scotland Friday: Patriotism & Potty Mouths

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We’re all going on a Autumn holiday…no Scottish weather for a week or 2…we’ll go surfing on our Autumn holiday…see Jamie Oliver too….

:)

Did I mention that me, TheStateThatIAmIn, Bringonthejoy, Miss Sweetroot to the Beat-root and another family begin our journey down to Cornwall today?

It is Flower of Scotland Friday though, so here’s a classic ‘only in Scotland’ kind of moment I wanted to share with you.

Walking to the bus stop after work on Monday, and suddenly I hear the sound of a ringtone – bagpipes playing ‘Oh Flower of Scotland...’ quickly followed the rather vocal exclamation of a builder who is in the middle of some dangerous activity going ‘oh for f***’s sake‘ and grumbling as he searches for his phone in his many pockets as the ringtone continues at loud volume…

Ahhh….Scotland….a land filled with a great many patriotic, potty mouthed Scots…