Lines from Rabbie Burns
'TWAS at the gatherin' o' the clans and all the Scots were there … Oops, pardon! I'm looking at the wrong piece of Burns. The Ball of Kirriemuir was indeed written by the immortal Rabbie, but its various characters - Mrs MacGinty, the village blacksmith, the village cripple and the four-and-twenty virgins doon fra' Inverness – are a little too vivid and unvarnished to suit the occasion. Let's look elsewhere.
There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man,
But the ae best dance ere came to the land
Was-the deil's awa wi' the Exciseman.
The "deil" (for the benefit of Sassenachs) is the devil. Yes, I think that piece of Burns fully captures the spirit of the KwaZulu-Natal Highland Games, which are to be held for the first time at Michaelhouse on Saturday, having moved to Balgowan from the less accessible and more weather-prone Fort Nottingham.
Bonny lassies dancin', pipers pipin', laddies tossin' the caber, walkin' the weight, heavin' the barrel, runnin' the kilted mile – all the traditional stuff. Nine local regiments involved, three pipe bands, lots of whusky. You could be at Braemar.
And this year there are a few add-ons. It seems the craft stall component will be a lot bigger than before. Many of the Midlands Meander craft stalls that dot the landscape have gravitated to Michaelhouse for the day to put their wares on display.
And local historian and tour guide Ken Gillings will deliver a lecture in the Michaelhouse amphitheatre on "The Cradle Days of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands". It's about the early settlers, he says, and if those early settlers were anything like their descendants still there in the Midlands today, it should be lively stuff.
Ken is a great raconteur and if he should choose to repeat some of the jokes I once heard him tell at a gunners' dinner, he'll have them rolling in the aisles. But perhaps, as with the Ball of Kirriemuir, it's not quite the occasion.
But it's certainly an occasion for fun and games.
The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman,
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.
See yer, Jimmy!
Same thoughts
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Men look at a woman's behind and say: 'Wow! What an ass!' Women look at a man's face and think the same."
Eel project
IN ENGLAND they're setting up "bristle boards" to encourage eels to make their way from the sea, via river, to the lake where they used to grow after being hatched off Bermuda.
Populations of eels have dropped alarmingly in Cumbria – the Lake District – due to artificial barriers such as dams and weirs.
Now conservationists are hoping to restock Lake Windermere by placing the bristle boards in the River Leven. The boards give the eels a purchase as they wriggle and slither their way upward to the lake.
It sounds an excellent project – but don't give Aunt Ermintrude a bristle board for her birthday, those wrigglers will give her hysterics.
Tailpiece
A WOMAN in a supermarket is following a grandfather and his badly behaved three-year-old grandson. He has his hands full with the child screaming for sweets, biscuits, all sorts of things. The grandad is saying in a controlled voice:, "Easy, William, we won't be long ... easy boy."
Another outburst and she hears the grandad calmly say: "It's okay, William, just a couple more minutes and we'll be out of here. Hang in there, boy."
At the checkout the little terror is throwing items out of the trolley. Grandad says again in a controlled voice: ""William, William, relax buddy, don't get upset. We'll be home in five minutes, stay cool William."
Very impressed, she goes outside where the grandfather is loading his groceries and the boy into the car. She says:"It's none of my business, but you were amazing in there. I don't know how you did it. That whole time you kept your composure, and no matter how loud and disruptive he got, you just calmly kept saying things would be okay. William is very lucky to have you as his grandad."
"Thanks," says the grandpa. "But I'm William. The little bastard's name is Kevin."
Last word
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. - Anton Chekhov
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