AULD SCOTS RHYMES

This just popped into my head, and I thought as it might interest some people I should stick it up here in case it gets lost, as it's quite old. It's a children's rhyme which I think originated with my ancestors who lived in the Blairgowrie area in the 19th century and beyond. My mum and her mum would recite it to me. It certainly goes back to the days when it was common to see horses everywhere!

William Smith, my fellow fine,

Can ye shoe this horse of mine?

Yes sir! And that I can,

Jist as weel as ony man.

Pit a bit upon the tae,

to mak the pownie clim the brae.

Pit a bit upon the heel,

to mak the pownie pace weel.

Pace weel, pownie

Pace weel, pownie,

Pace weel, pace weel, pace weel pownie!

And here's another one. This was my grandfather's pretend grace before meals when he was the municipal engineer in Darjeeling in the early 20th century. It was a bit of a joke with the local servants, who assumed it was some sort of strange, foreign pooja. (I know, we wouldn't do such things now or laugh at the staff, but these are different times, and this is a wee bit of history.)

Bake a puddin' bake a pie,

Send it up to John Mackay.

John Mackay is no in!
Send it up to the Man in the Min.

The Man in the Min is makin' shin:

Tuppence a pair, an' they're a' din!

(Do I need to supply translations? Is auld Scots a bit tricky if you're not from these parts? Let me know!)

 

Christmas greetings to all my friends!

 

EVERYDAY LIFE WITH A BROKEN ARM – PART 2

I've given up trying to make food look presentable. It tastes just as nice when it's a mess. (Well, you try slicing an avocado neatly with one hand!)

Bending over can be difficult and painful. If something falls on the floor, it ceases to exist.

These lids are hard enough to remove with two working hands. With only one, it's impossible.

 

TYPING WITH ONE HAND

Welcome to the exciting, new, non-typed section of my rather irregular blog. Why is it not typed? Well, read on, and all will become clear.

SUGIE pronounced shoogie

Browsing through the poetry of Thomas Morgan McGurk, my late father, I found this one, about his sister-in-law Struan's pure white cat, called Sugie (pronounced "shoogie" because she was as white as sugar.)

You'll notice that this contains proof, if such were needed, that my parents used to take a dictionary to bed and find exciting new words. Here's an opportunity to expand your vocabulary!

Anyway, it's the internet, and you know, cats ...


SUGIE
Albescent puss, proliferous and proud,
Cohabitant of luxury and ease,
What dream obtrude upon they gremial sleep?
What heart-seducing, feline Odysseys?


Distract thee from thy couch, when day has gone,
And night has wrapped its mantle round thy heart,
Calling thee forth, where wanton Tom-cats sing
Their love-songs with an unmelodious art?

Immantled in thy coat of hirsute snow,
Quivered with barbs of loveliness and grace;
The moonlit yard, beneath a starlit sky,
Is surely not for thee the safest place!

While shades of ancestors behind thee stand,
Adjuring thee to spurn thy false delights,
Biology has destined thee to write
An Iliad of polyandrous nights.

Go forth, and taste the sweet, connubial air,
The door's ajar, and Hymen holds his court,
Fair nymphomaniac, now take the field,
Horripilant and fierce before the sport!

Methinks it is a fate of worst degree,
A jest of feline gods in bacchic mood,
First to be born a cat, and then to act
The masquerade of humans, preaching good.

And yet, meseems, for thee the loving hands
Of gentle humans toil with tireless jest.
The lap of luxury, the cup of joy
Is shared with thee. Was ever cat so blest?

For thee the night is dark with felon's stealth,
When comely maidens, armed with spade and pail,
Delve the rich loam of dewy pleasances
And sift it then of worm, and slug, and snail.

What wonders of the deft, chromatic brush,
What meadows lush, and opalescent meads
Are to the world denied, through hours ill-spent
In min'stering to thy sanitary needs?

Oh, then the gay glissade, the lepid leap!
The vanished languor and the routed sloth !
Art is well lost for rapture such as this
And kings would lose their crowns for less, in troth.

Sugie! Thy name should blaze in solar glow,
Lighting a canvas in thy mistress' flat,
Amid thy progeny, esconsed in luxury,
The feline matriarch, the model cat.

T.M.M 5th January 1947

Her Last Encore

Tidying out some boxes of papers, I come across this poem. I must have written it about 10 years ago, at a guess, though I don't remember much about it. Thought it might raise the odd titter.

HER LAST ENCORE

She did not cry or scream or shout
that day she cut her finger;
she pulled the glassy fragments out
and sang - for she's a singer.

The bloody puddles stained her score;
the notes could not be read.
Yet still she sang her last encore,
ad-libbing words instead.

Alas! She could not stem the flow.
Red gore poured all around.
She faltered, weakened by the blow,
and slumped towards the ground.

The crowd, in horror, rose as one,
to see the diva dying,
"I fear that nothing can be done!"
the tenor whispered, crying.

So still the prima donna lies,
right there, where she did drop.
the crowd files out, with sorry sighs,
and the cleaner brings her mop.

ally McGurk

ME - the horrible, hidden disease

I have friends who suffer from ME. Most of them, I haven't met, even those who live nearby, because it's so bad that some of them have to live most of their lives cloistered in darkened, soundproofed rooms.

People don't know about this disease, or if they do, they only know a little about it. Until recent years, my own perception was that it was characterised by an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, making it impossible to do very much, and the more you did, the more exhausted you felt. And yes, there is that. But there is so much more, that I knew nothing about.

I've asked some sufferers to describe their own experience of living with ME, in their own words, and I'm going to reproduce what they've said on some new pages on this blog. Please read at least some of this, especially if, like me, you weren't aware of some of the symptoms.

I'm a musician, and I have a lot of friends who are also musicians. Last Christmas we did a fundraiser in our local village hall for those who'd been affected by the Cumbrian floods. It was a great success, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed themselves, telling me they'd be happy to come to more events of the same sort. I've been meaning to do another one ever since. Well, now I have a charity that desperately needs funds - ME Research.

Please have a look at their website and consider donating to research for this poorly-funded, and little-understood disease. You can read the official explanation  here: WHAT IS ME?

I haven't set the date for the fundraiser yet, but the first one should be at the end of September if things go to plan. I'll print out our sufferers' statements and plaster them round the walls, and make sure everyone who comes along knows exactly what we're fundraising for.

In the meantime, please read. I'll copy and paste patients' statements as I get them.
You'll find links to these pages on the right --->

Thank you.

______________________________________________________________________