A scottish-born friend of ours celebrated his 50th today, so his friends were all summoned to celebrate – as Scottishly as we knew how.*
One five-year old took a look at him and said, “Hey look! He’s wearing the same dress I am!”
Awesome.
Due to a tug-of-war gone horribly right, I also finally saw what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.**
I was also pleased to observe an elderly lady who’d obviously been as stumped for Scottish-ish gear as I was. She’d found a tartan pencil case and wore it proudly on her head. Another lovely old lady brought out a set of electric bagpipes and the sunny Canberra day suddenly sounded like rain-swept plains on an isolated headland.
And then, during afternoon tea. . . the piéce de resistance. We heard the drone and pipes approaching from outside, and paused with half-eaten shortbread en route to our mouths. There’s no mystery when you hear the skirl of pipes – no wondering, “Is that what I think it is?” Short of the yowling of angry cats, there’s no sound like it.
And in came the piper, in full regalia (including a beard that he assured his many groupies was once red). At the doorway we all gasped in wonder and delight. As he entered the room the sheer unmistakeable power of bagpipe volume FILLED THE ROOM.
One forgets how loud pipes can be.
Not sure how.
All up, a freaking brilliant afternoon.
And, as usual, here’s a nice bit of forest to feast your eyes on (thanks to Flickr.com):
*ie, not very.
**shorts.
That’s a carnivorous plant by the way.
(Oh, I mean in the final picture, not the one with the bagpipes – although I wouldn’t be overly surprised if bagpipes turned out to somehow be some form of alien carnivorous plant…)
Bagpipes being carnivorous would certainly explain a lot.
There are some people’s kilts one should never see up.
W: I don’t want to see up ANYONE’S kilt.
Maybe that’s just me.