I Wish You Fabulous Ventilation In Your Chimney.
Out with the old! In with the New Year! Be sure to add that second bit or poor grampa’ll be feeling a chill wind coming in with the bells.
All right, I’ve had a wee snifter already but I’ve looked at the clock and it’s officially Hogmanay! A time when all tall dark-haired men are seized upon at doorsteps and their pockets rummaged thoroughly for lumps. The coal etc. found they will be ushered in as harbingers of good luck for the coming year. Tall dark men are favoured because it’s said the true Scots are dark-haired and tall blonde men at the door used to mean Vikings and more bad luck than Telly Savalas’ head-lice. Blonde women are considered lucky though – possibly because of the fertility suggested by the child-bearingness of their Nordic hips. Luckier still are the couple that come a-first-footin’ up the path with a nicely clinking plastic bag.
It’s Hogmanay!! When Scots all over the planet grow jolly on barley juice (“Wha’s like us, eh?”) then maudlin (“O howly! Waily!”) then emotional (“This could well be the last one I see! Oh uh-huh. Yes it could well be. It could well be the last one any of us sees. It’s all going to hell, all of it” *Great sweeps of the arms to indicate the enormity of the number of the things that are going to hell* ) then Bolshy (“Nemo me impune accessit! D’you hear? NEMO!”) then defiant, tedious, then back to jolly again before singing the ould songs and passing out to be found the next morning by a sensibly-shod tweedy lady’s labradors, lying in a ditch, foetal, thumb-sucking and softly snuffling the old year’s dreams and drams away.
(Hogmanay is also the very best time of the year to use run-on sentences)
It’s Hogmanay!!! The only time of the year anyone ever drinks Advocaat.
It’s Hogmanay!!!! A time for shortbread on the good plates, whisky in the best crystal and flushed aunties getting better and better measures from ruddier and ruddier (and often ruder and ruder) uncles.
It’s Hogmanay!!!!! A time when it’s OK to snog perfect, but often imperfect strangers in the street. One year in a freezing Aberdeen I was kissed right on the gob by a passing fellow who, I grew hideously aware, as his face drew back and I began to get a look at him, had a great, crusty cold sore over half his lower lip. God knows how I didn’t get it but I reckon the cold in the Granite City that night wasn’t allowing many germs, complex or simplex, any chance to flourish. They were probably huddling together for warmth deep in his pustulent lip behind the wall of scab. Pah-phthoo! Pah-phthoo! Phthoo!
For the Problem Household it’s been a year of mixed blessings. Chief joy was the kids. The Problem Children have transformed from pre-school mud-puppies into proper sticky-out-tummied little girls rushing off to Kindergarten each day, hardly remembering how they used to cling to their mammy’s legs and want to stay home with me all day. Problem Child the Second lost her first baby tooth today and tooth-fairy dust is settling still on her pillow of great hope. Nothing I will ever do in my life again will be better than the girls.
My granny died in June. I loved her with all my heart. She lived with us all throughout my childhood (our house was built onto the back of my grandparents’) and played a huge role in bringing me up. She taught me to read, to love books and was a constant source of wisdom and fun. We were best of friends and I remember days when it was as if there wasn’t anybody else in the world but us and the cake we were making, or the book we were reading, or the daffodils we were tying or one of the collections or projects we were always working on. I was allowed to do all sorts of messy things in her kitchen I wasn’t allowed to do in our’s. My brother and I were free to poke into nooks and crannies all over her creaky, old house and I never felt so safe and secure as when she was playing the piano for my grandpa and me to waltz to. She was always very proper but had a twinkle in her eye and a razor sharp wit that seemed to grow sharper the older I got, but of course, I was just growing up and getting the joke more. She was a granny for all ages. My friends loved her and a few would go and visit her whenever they went home to Lewis, right ’til she was near the end. She had infinite time for me, it seemed, until her’s ran out and I will miss her deeply til the hour my own run’s out.
But Hogmanay was a great favourite of my granny’s. She liked Glenlivet at Christmas and Glen Morangie at Hogmanay. She would hold court, holding forth on all sorts and all the time holding her whisky – she assured us it had no effect on her whatsoever except a little swelling round the ankles – and she’d have us all rapt at her stories and fun. So this year, I’ll be raising a glass to my granny, thanking whatever God sent me my unexceptional but wholly amazing children, and as the ancient tradition demands*, sweeping away the dying year to make way for the promise of the new.
And I will be raising a glass or seventeen to you lot of fine blogging pals, declaring “Lang may your lum reek!” which means “I hope your chimney will always smoke” and is by way of saying long life and prosperity and stuff.
So then. Blogpals I salute you! You make me chortle and guffaw and think and engage on an almost daily basis. You rock. Slainte mhor agus bliadhna mhath ur! Which is by way of saying “May your neighbour’s sheep never eat the washing off your line.”
Scoff you not, you ungrateful bleggarts! You never know when you’ll need that. It could happen day or night but I’ve protected you now see – your scanties may air unmolested.
*Scottish people take this more seriously than others I think although I dunno why. Something to do with the Scottish Kirk not letting us have Christmas for a few hundred years, saying it was a papist ceremony or whatever. Something like that. It sounds like them. That’d make you want to make up for with a big splash at the New Year. But I remember being horrified when I was wee when I heard my uncle’s fiancee from Nottingham had said on the phone she didn’t wait up for the bells and usually just went to bed. I had an idea of her all dusty and cobwebbed with the old year like Miss Havisham before she caught on fire and I remember being genuinely surprised at her relative freshness when I finally met her to be her bridesmaid.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:42 am
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and a verrrry fine hogfather to you too. Only one more day of drinking and carousing and then detox, oh yes. DETOX. It’s 9:39 here and I’ve just woken after maybe four hours proper sleep, if I drove a car I’d be over the bloody limit, and I’m pretty sure there was a bottle of gin where now there is not, also I have misplaced my slippers and appear to have gone to bed in backwards jammies. Not a good sign Sam, never a good sign. But no matter! Festivus for the restivus is drawing to a close and there is still tonight, and while I can still drink hooch and dance in high heels I must bid you adieu and sl?inte and even an huzzah or two.
coffee, must make coffee…
December 31st, 2007 at 10:07 am
I knew there must be a good reason why the Scots are so keen on this anniversary of time. I do like the dance where men in kilts put their hands over their heads. Happy New Year to you Sam.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Happy New Year, dear. As it so happens, I have a bottle of Glenlivet at home. I shall toast your gran.
As for the tooth-fairy, I trust it will be bringing mutual funds for college this year instead of the usual quarter.
Cheers.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:52 pm
May your dear Gran rest in peace. It’s lovely that you remember her with so much love and I am encouraged to continue allowing the teenagers to do dinner when they ask to. My worry at present is that we may have taken all the champers to Sussex. Still I’m sure I have plenty of stuff hidden away. I am married to a Scot after all.
Thank you for brightening my cyber space and lang may it continue.
Happy New Year young lady!
December 31st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Sounds to me like an excuse to continuously drink beverages beginning with the word ‘Glen’. And I like it! Count me in. I heretofore apply to be an honorary Scot in the hopes that I might also celebrate what sounds like a truly magical day. Now…where’s the registration line?
December 31st, 2007 at 7:23 pm
There’s no doubt that Hogmanay seems more Scottish than St Andrew’s Day.
Hope you have a great one, and when you’ve got a moment to spare, do pop over to pick up your Rambling Beard award
December 31st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Let the rum flow freely, fmc and then practice saying that at 1am. Hope you’re having a great time, m’darlin’.
Nanas. me too – though not as much as the one where they put their kilts over their heads. All happiness to you, dear Nanas.
Rand’, somewhere up in heaven you shall make an old lady spirit very happy if you do that. The Problem Husband wanted to leave a tenner! A tenner! I mean, the tooth was flippen tiny. I talked him down to a buck and a Bulgarian 1-thingy-coin.
Pat, never worry – I’m sure YTL has made provisions. You remind me a lot of my granny actually. I’m sure you would have got on like flammable dwellings, the pair of you. Much love for the New Year. x
Kara, the registration line is over there, look – by the bar. You’ll have to fight your way through the thirsty patrons to get there though. There is no doubt in my mind that you are more than equal to this task and therefore, dear Kara, if you can also prove that you can cheerfully go for a brisk stroll in a Force 8 North Atlantic gale, you have earned your Scottishness. There’ll be some sort of certificate, no doubt. We like certificates. And a lot of gratuitous drinking. We think that’s nice too. We’ll fix you up with a clan later.
Kim, cheers for that, Kim you beardy amongst beardies, you! Cheers to you and Eryl too for setting up the Storytellers’ blog. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hearing everyone’s yarns so far. Long may it and The Bearded One continue. Happiness and peace to all the Ayres, this New Year.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Happy Hogmanay sweet girl. Hug those wee girls tight. Kids are def the best things we ever do.
Mine big yun is off to the city, Edinburgh, to party with his pals.
Here we have black bun and shorty and a good single malt to see in the New Year.
I cleaned the house today, old habits die hard. And the queue at the butcher’s for syeak pie was out the door.
We’re having venison tomorrow, if I wake up in time.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Apprentice, I’d love to see the New Year in in Edinburgh. I never have done though I can hardly understand why not. I cleaned too, in a cursory “I’m cleaning” fashion, and my dad is here so we’ll be keeping as many of the traditions we can tonight. Venison sounds spot on – I’d love some, but it’s pig for us tomorrow, m’afraid. Wishing you best of health and happiness in the coming year, you sparky, fascinating lady you. Here’s to ya! xx
December 31st, 2007 at 11:45 pm
The way you have described your grandmother is exactly the way I picture you, though I imagine (from your photograph) that you are younger and more beautiful. You certainly have her wit and story-telling skill, and I’d be amazed if any of your blogging pals made you laugh any more than you’ve made us laugh.
If I didn’t still have a killer cough, I’d be out there claiming my fair share of kisses. Maybe I could whip out my surgical mask for any big-bellied herpes incubators, but remove it in a trice if any husky, good-looking young things ambled past me — if I could just beat my daughters to them, that is. I plan to take out pots and pans and beat on them — which is what we did back when I was growing up. And where is my tin whistle now that I really need it?
Happy New Year to you, and thank you for all the fun posts!
January 1st, 2008 at 12:21 am
Happy New Year, Sam, to you and the family. I’ll raise a glass to your dear Granny tonight but I hope she won’t mind that it’s Stoli and not a good glass of Glen Morangie. I cannae do the Glen.
January 1st, 2008 at 5:12 am
It’s 5am and I haven’t been to bed yet. Which is weird ‘cos it’s an hour past getting up time. And I haven’t even been partying. I’m doing this all wrong.
Mr. and Mrs. Tobeavoided-Atallcosts over the road had a party and it’s still going on. Just 30minutes ago a woman screamed – a piercing scream – and it went quiet for a bit. She was either murdered or a sheep nibbled at her undies. I’ll find out tomorrow, which incidentally is today.
So until it dawns all I can do is sit here and raise a coffee mug to you and gran, Sam. Slainte mhor agus a h-uile beannachd duibh, a?ghraidh. (Yes, that was plagiarised – what do you take me for? A linguist?)
January 1st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Excellent, ’tis January the 1st and you’ve given me reason to go back to the cupboard for the whiskey.
Have a lovely year so, and always be troubled by people who don’t wait up for bells.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Have a good one you wee shite.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Bless your granny, who’s mebbe having a small dram up there with my Aunty Lily who passed away a few months back and was cut from the same cloth. I’m a great fan of grannies, although I will never be one, and will fight to my last breath to stop them being shoved off buses.
Your whimsical and entertaining flights of fancy brighten up an all-too-egotistical and mediocre blogosphere. Keep it up old girl!
January 1st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Well said, Sam. Here’s to another year of blog-snorkelling!
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 am
Hi Sam,
Your Gran is gorgeous, so is your maternity, so is your Hogmonay. Happy New Year,
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Happy happy festive season to you my dear! Possibly too late from me, but the wishes were there previously – I was just too drunk to wish them into words! Mwah!
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 am
The Picts were wee fellas and the Irish that became Scots were gingers so lets hope you got lucky. Have a good one no matter what and blessings to yer gran.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 am
Mary, husky, yeah – how comes there’s never a nice husky one around when a lady’s feeling an Aberdonian chill? Forget husky – just one who thought to bring a scarf would do.
Medbh, my granny would have no objection whatsoever with a Stolli toast. I cannae do the Glen either. I’m a failed Scot, cast out to California in shame. My family never speaks of me.
Sneezy, a five am undies-nibbling incident is no fun for any sheep-owner. I think I know just how piercing was her piercing cry.
Eolai, you can’t trust people that don’t. When I meet one I’m always careful never to look directly into their eyes.
Mister Major, I don’t believe I care for your tone. I haven’t ever been addressed as a wee shite in all this week so far until this. However to be polite I shall endeavour to have, as you say, “a good one”. Ya big shite ya!
Daphne, if they are indeed up there, there is no doubt in my mind at all that granny and Auntie Lily have sought each other out and at this moment are sitting on a cloud of delectable shortbread and chatting about the Wrens over a heavenly gin and tonic.
Bock, a-bloop-de-bloop-de-bubbledy-bloop bubble. *Signs “OK”*
Sniffly, your words are gorgeous and good-hearted. Happy New Year to you too – keep on blogging.
Carolyn, ceud mile mwahs back at you over the wide Pacific, m’darling. B
Knuds, I wish you plenty of soap, weemen and as many drops of the hard stuff as you can gesticulate with your crusty, yellow fingernail at. Happy happy new year to yourself. I said gesticulate you filthy old man!
January 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am
If the Christmas cake doesn’t run out soon I will be a one ton housewife myself before long. Have a marvellous time in Ireland.
I have had to award you an… award. You don’t have to do anything though. Well, it would be good if you accepted it but that’s all.