Tag Archives: Hogmanay

Happy New Year

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We’ll probably be having a quiet Hogmanay this year. We’re not going out ‘first footing’. But if anyone comes to our door after ‘the bells’ – this is the sort of welcome that they’ll be given. Whisky, Irn Bru, cherry cake and shortbread. Maybe not the kilt, that’s just for ceilidhs and weddings. Note the seasonal snowman on the Irn Bru bottle.

Women of my mother’s generation used to cook a huge meal and serve it up about an hour before midnight. Steak pie was the traditional fare, the idea was that if people (men) ate a good meal then they wouldn’t get so drunk and hungover. Women of course didn’t drink anything, well perhaps a very wee sherry at midnight!

I’m hoping that 2011 is going to be a good and peaceful year and things aren’t going to be as horrendous as all the politicians are promising us they will be.

Happy New Year to anyone visiting ‘Pining’ and big hugs and kisses to the lovely people who take the time to leave comments.

If you missed the Irn Bru advert which I posted a few weeks ago you might like to have a look at it now. I shouldn’t need any Irn Bru for hangover purposes as I’ll just be having one wee drinkie, I’m not mad keen on alcohol but I am quite partial to our other national drink.
The advert contains well known Scottish landmarks.

Sláinthe – as they say in the Highlands. It’s pronounced like “flange” only with an “s” instead of “f” at the beginning.

Post Christmas Pause

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We had a very restful Boxing Day with all of us just lolling around at home. Why do people rush out to the shops/sales? I’m sure it’s a form of madness. It was bad enough that we had to go to IKEA again yesterday. We had a horrible feeling of deja vu but at least this time it was only raining and most of the roads were clear of snow.

I’m not a big fan of going to the shops, in fact I really only do it when there’s no alternative, it isn’t a pleasurable pastime for me as it seems to be with so many folks.

But as IKEA closed an hour after we got there the last time due to the snow we just had to hire a van a second time to go back and get what Duncan hadn’t had the time to buy before. We were in IKEA for four hours, and after the first one I had just about lost the will to live. He got another bed, a sofa, more bookcases, chests of drawers and odds and sods.

Then there was the horrible long journey from Edinburgh to Dundee and all the unloading and lugging everything up two flights of stairs. By which time we were saying, “Why didn’t he buy a ground floor flat?” Anyway it’s all done now and he has been warned that when he wants to move out he will have to get professional removal men to do it!

Our ’empty nest’ was only empty for about a week – and then everyone came here for Christmas. They left us today again and will be back here in a few days for Hogmanay, which is really the most important day of the year in Scotland, when it all begins again. Christmas became a holiday in Scotland fairly recently, I think about 50 years ago most people had to work on Christmas.

Because of all the shenanigans I’m way off my reading schedule. I had been planning on reading at least 100 pages of War and Peace every day but I just haven’t had the time. I had been hoping to get it finished by the end of the year but I’m only half way through it. So unless I take to my bed, (I have the best light for reading there) and read over 200 pages a day – I’m stuffed. Or should I say my 2011 reading list schedule is stuffed before it begins.

I started reading War and Peace because I’ve been putting it off for years and there seem to be a lot of people reading the new translation at the moment, so I thought I would join in as it would mean that I would have a deadline. I think the deadline is January 23rd but I’d rather finish it before then so that I can read something from my list. I’m not good at reading two books at a time, I prefer to concentrate on one and I must say that War and Peace has been a nice surprise. My copy is an old translation from 1943. I’m finding it to be much easier going than I had anticipated, so I’m able to read it at bedtime, even when I’m tired, and remember what I read when I wake up in the morning. Which isn’t always the case, believe me!

Anyway, I’m off to bed and hoping to get a good three hours of reading done before I put the light out because it was after 2 o’clock when I put the book down last night.

New Year 2010

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Well it turned out to be just about the quietest Hogmanay that we have ever had. For the first time since we had kids we ended up spending it on our own. Usually our house is full of young people as our boys have always had their friends spending the time here and we come down to a lot of half dead bodies in the morning, which has a charm all of its own.

This year however, as they have both finished university and found good jobs, one has his own place with his girlfriend and the other is planning to move out very soon, they were both doing their own things, very strange.

We had a bit of a drink together and after a short time decided just to go to bed as the pavements are still too dangerous for gallivanting about on even in the daylight, very icy.

We were all strung out along the east coast of Scotland from Dundee to Burntisland. From Burntisland beach you can see the firework display which they have on Edinburgh Castle battlements. At midnight all the ships in the Firth of Forth hooted their horns. Everyone ended up back at home base in Kirkcaldy for the New Year meal. I know that as the cook I shouldn’t boast but I must admit that it was a great leg of lamb.

The cooking reminded me that in my family home it was the tradition to have a huge meal on Hogmanay. Whilst I was doing all the house cleaning, my mum was busy cooking an enormous steak pie with all the trimmings which was ready to be served around about 10.30/11.00 at night on Hogmanay. The idea was that if the men got a big stodgy meal inside them, then they wouldn’t get so drunk after midnight – they needed something to line their stomachs.

Notice that I said ‘the men’, because when I was a youngster very few women drank alcohol. A very small sherry would be the most that any of them would have. I can’t help thinking that things would be much better if we went back to that way of behaving. I’ve seen some terrible mother role models for young girls recently. Why would any woman want their children to see them paralytically sozzled? Mind you, it isn’t any better if fathers end up like that too.

Well that’s me got my first blog moan of the year over with and my last post about this new year.

Hogmanays of the Past

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When I think of the Hogmanays of my childhood I always seem to be up to my elbows in cleaning stuff. My mum insisted that the whole house had to be turned upside-down and scoured from top to bottom in the traditional Scottish way. As I am the youngest by far, it fell to me to do it all.

This is one tradition which I never had any intention of keeping going and if there is some dust from 2009 still in the house, who cares, not me anyway.

I think it will be a quiet Hogmanay for us this year, although you never can tell until we get there.

As promised in an earlier post, I’m going to be rejigging my blog for the new year. At the moment, it’s very basic as I wasn’t sure if I would carry on with it, but as I’ve had lots more visitors than I had anticipated having, I’ve really been encouraged to continue. It doesn’t seem to matter that I don’t have a post every day, I’ve always prefered quality over quantity in anything.

Look out for a Scottish cliche at ‘The Bells’.