Happy Birthday Robbie Burns

I had my cousins over for a Robbie Burns' (Scottish poet, in case you don't know) dinner last night. I went full out, like I usually do! I even made a kilt this week :). I used the internet and my grandma for recipes and served Cock-a-leekie soup (kinda bland, but i liked it), Bannocks (dry!!), Collops of Beef (marinated steak basically, liked it), Clapshot (mashed turnip and potato, quite excellent), Haggis (seriously yucky to look at it and I didn't like it at all), Black Pudding (soooo digusting), peas and carrots, and Floating Island (red currant jelly meringue on sherry laced whipped cream - yummy). We read the Selkirk Grace and Address to the Haggis. I did an immortal memory (basically, a history of Burns and why we bother celebrating his birthday). And we also read random poems and songs - including Auld Lang Syne which in probably the most well known. My favourite poem is On My Own Friend And My Father's Friend, Wm. Muir in Tarbolton Mill. It's an epitaph/elegy and it reminds me of my scottish grandfather who died when I was 15.

As for the kilt, my grandma gave me some plaid fabric so I could make a scarf or something, but she bought quite a bit. I decided to attempt a kilt and googled "how to make a kilt". Using this website, I got this result:

The pin you can't see in this pic (near my left hand) is a silver scotty dog that I gave to my grandfather for Christmas one year and that my grandma gave back to me after he died.

And in the news - I've been reading about the Tory attack ads on Stephane Dion. I despise attack ads. I think they are the lowest form of politics. I don't care what you think of the other side, I only want to know what you will do for me. Or at the very least, what you would like to promise me for the now that you probably won't be able to fulfill later. Lie to me about yourself, don't diss your opponent! Ahhhh, the faith I have in politicans.