Ians hogmany

Everyone in Tilling is sniffing with a head
cold and dieting, so not much is going on.
Also on a penitental wagon, in my case anyway.

So, good to have a letter from Iain which the laws
of libel have caused me to edit;


Dear All

New Years Eve or more correctly Hogmany was
very unscottish this year except perhaps for S.McG.
but more of that later. There were six and two halfs
of us or perhaps five and three halfs if we seriously
consider S.McG. which we will, but later.

The six adults were sitting down to a sedate dinner
at 9.30, which in itself is unscottish for hogmany.
We had Arbroath Smokie chowder which is fairly
scottish and breast of goose which is not. As I have
said we were not many but five bottles of champagne
later we felt as though we were, particularly S.McG.

He of course saw at least two of each of us which must
have made the table seem very crowded indeed.
Half way through the proceedings S.McG.discovered
that he was not working the following evening which
meant he felt free to up the level of celebration.
He had clearly not realised that he had already done
this about an hour earlier. The result was that he did
not see 2009 until 11.00am (12 hours after he went to
bed) the following morning and even then only through
a dense fog.

For the rest of us the night ended at about 1.00pm
which is totally unscottish but we all had a fine time.
Incidentally the other two halfs were children who
managed to be neither seen nor heard for most of the
evening. I only hope that our conversation was entirely
unheard by them as much of it was entirely
inappropriate for the ears of 10 and 11 year olds.
They were there only because one of our guests
could not come without her son and we invited my
great nephew to keep him company. My great nephew
was his usual sweet natured discreet self whilst the
other was a sullen pale faced loon with a humour
by-pass who will hopefully never be inflicted on us
ever again.

Next day was brunch at mid day followed by a bracing
walk in the countryside around Balmule and a walk
along the beach at Aberdour. The loon smiled for the
first time at the sight of black pudding and sausages
but was back to his normal state of pale sullenness
when he realised he had to walk and no one was going
to carry the little .... Enough of this vitriol, it is the
season of good cheer and kindness even to sullen
self absorbed eleven year old loons with no sense
of adventure nor humour. Aren't children wonderfull?

S.McG. managed both brunch and the bracing walks
which is a testament to his strength of will, his good
nature and of course his embarassment and dangerous
quantities of paracetemol.

I met Steve at a party on the 3rd January to say bye
bye to the daughter of two of our closest friends.
She is off to teach english to children in Tanzania
which seems a very worthy thing to do if ever so
slightly patronising given that she has only just left
school with a moderate understanding of the english
language and none of the grammar. She is however
a lovely girl with a big heart and I wish her well which
sounds just as patronising on my part.

Steve was talking about coming out to Esperaza
towards the end of January but perhaps he will
think about the end of February instead.
I will certainly think about it.

Catherine has been in touch and is a bit upset
that I have left without returning her books but
I will try and figure out what to do. Most of them
are in the house so I will perhaps get Katrina to pick
them up and drop them at yours where she could
pick them up. Unfortunately I came away with the
Becherel grammar but perhaps I could buy one on
Amazon and have it sent.

Nothing else of any note has happened so I will say
ta ta.

Bisous

Iain