Burns Night

Happy Burns Night everyone - celebrated it in true Scottish style with a plate of Gnocchi al a pesto Genovese, with a nice Australian Merlot and a choc ice for afters. Slainte!

This is a picture of the recently renovated Burns Memorial in Edinburgh. Underneath (out of shot) there were some wreaths laid.

Burns Night always makes me think of my grandfather, who organised a truly great Burns supper in Glasgow which was well regarded for the quality of its speakers and the music. He (my grandfather) would often compose short verse and songs, and I remember him once singing me a song he composed with a friend when they were tattie rogueing. I can still hear it now - in his remarkably tender voice.

I think my favourite song is Now Westlin Winds, both because of the quality of the verse, and the way Dick Gaughan sings it.

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o'er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer

The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountain
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountain
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet

Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt! Away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion

But Peggy dear the evening's clear
Thick flies the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature

We'll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I'll grasp thy waist and, fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer