Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face...

This past week has been devoted to Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, one of Literature's finest poets, though sadly incomprehensible, even to his fellow-countrymen. Certainly to his Orcadian fellow-countrymen, if last Friday's lesson was anything to go by.

"What do we know about Robert Burns?" "He was a womanising nymphomaniac," announced Graeme.

Burns wrote hundreds of excellent poems, collected thousands of songs, farmed, worked as an Exciseman, toured Scotland, drank a lot and fathered a remarkable number of illegitimate children. Put in this context, his early death seems more inevitable than tragic.

I can't say that Burns' love-songs were a great hit with the kids on Hoy (they're a little young) and poor Iona, bless her, was struggling with 'To a haggis' -

Is there that owre his French ragout

Or olio that wad staw a sow,

Or fricasee wad mak her spew

Wi' perfect sconner,

Looks down wi' sneering, scorfu' view

On sic a dinner?

But anyone that makes fun of the French snobbery about food is a pal o' mine, so Burns get ma vote!

Tam o'Shanter was a great success though and we spent a happy day deconstructing it, illustrating it and planning a film of it. I gave Donald a drawing of Burns' byre to colour in: "What breed of kye is that? What's that wee beastie on the stall?" It was a stoat, which I was foolish enough to tell him was the same colour as my hair, so the beastie is now labelled 'Ms Hainsworth.'

The weather had turned truly dreadful. Housemate Emma had a friend from Hartlepool staying for a couple of days who was due to leave Friday as he had to go to a wedding on Saturday. Every ferry was cancelled and he finally left at midday today. He should have docked by one but the last I heard he was still at sea at half past two. So it was with some trepidation that 10 of us set off for Flotta for their Burns Night Supper. I organised this little jolly, and I was terrified it was going to be awful, as, once we set off at 7.20p.m., there was no possibility of leaving till 2a.m. And, given the weather, there was a serious risk of being stuck there for many hours more. I don't have a vast circle of friends here and I thought it was about to be reduced by 9! But it was a real laugh. Flotta is a small island halfway between Mainland and Hoy. It has a population of 100 and a school with 6 kids in it. Its main claim to fame is that it is a major employer, as is it an oil terminal. It was the workers' boat, a brand-new catamaran called the Flotta Lass that took us across. It went to Hoy first, where Mabel (Scottish dancing teacher extraordinaire and now an accomplished performer of Tam o' Shanter thanks to me: it was because of Mabel that the lesson went so well) Graeme and his grandpa got on. Granpa abandoned Graeme as soon as he arrived, so he sat with us all evening and led us clueless idiots in the dancing. What a star! I feel this auspicious event deserves a little poem:

We set off for Flotta

To celebrate the poet

I was invited by a bloke on the ferry who failed to turn up

(Wouldn't you know it)

So I never got to see him

In his kilt and his sporran

But I ate three helpings of haggis

And got severe indigestion.

After enough haggis and clapshot

To make a girl sink,

They powdered the floor till it was like an ice-rink.

Like Burns' witches and warlocks

We lapped and we flang

And we slipped in the powder

And got the moves wrong.

We dashed the White Sergeant

Wi' Graeme, aged 13 and a quarter

(Ma date fer the neet

On the island of Flotta.)

When we were not dancing (or, in my case, groaning, as I ate far too much - but it was worth it) Graeme entertained us with scurrilous gossip about just about everyone in the room. He also told us that the guys who were running the bar (cheap beer! another first for Orkney!) had made a 'tourist' video about Flotta and put it on YouTube. It's quite funny - just type 'Flotta' into the YouTube search thingy. Anyway, a good time was had by all and the whole thing cost six quid. You might also like the following website:
http://www.wallydug.demon.co.uk/haggis/leaflet.html

Health & Safety

I remember, back in Dartford days, when everyone would be saying around this time "I've been back a week and I don't feel as if I'd had a holiday at all." (Actually, one hadn't really HAD a holiday, seeing as the run-up to Christmas consisted of marking A-level coursework and one started the 2 inch thick pile of GCSE marking on Boxing Day.) Thus I can gloat: I've been back a week and scarcely feel as if I've done any work. I do, however, feel pretty ropey and, as 'news' is generally 'bad news' this at least gives me something to write about, seeing as it's dark here mainly, and days are grey and cold.

A most pleasant holiday in the company of those I care for, nearly all of whom managed to be ill, or have been ill, or were about to be ill. But not me! she shouted, Lennie-like, something I put down to being under-worked.

I flew down and back, just as well, as the ferries were cancelled and roads very dangerous. You only realise what that means when you come back several days after New Year and find the supermarkets devoid of fresh food. Somerfields had one Savoy cabbage that appeared to have crawled in there to die. That was it. I wouldn't fly if I could help it, though. You don't get fed, even though it's BA, and the security is tedious. I had 2 pots of homemade jam with me and they made me throw them away. You can no longer wheel your case from car to check-in at Kirkwall's tiny airport, as huge concrete blocks now block the access (presumably because they are expecting attacks from terrorists no taller than 9 inches and who lack climbing skills.)

I have put in a full week this week, as I am now the stand-in for the County Drama Advisor (note use of capitals to make this seem impressive) every Thursday. Wednesday's trip back from Stronsay was less than pleasant: it took the best part of two hours to get home. It was a surprise to see the plane, which appeared from an entirely different direction than usual, as it was so windy. Once airborne, it was so buffetted by the gale that we were at an angle of 45degrees, first one way, then the other. It was like being in one of those war films starring Kenneth More. I was so cold when I got home I had to go to bed to warm up. I had a rehearsal that evening for this one-act play I'm directing and walked out into the sort of rain that soaks you instantaneously to the skin. Even cuddling my little hottie, HW Bear, failed to warm me through by morning. But a trip to Hoy always cheers me up, especially as I was being paid a day's supply to do nothing.

The idea is that the entire school will put on 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' at the end of March. Somehow, this ghastly Lloyd-Webber farrago has passed me by and I knew nothing about it, so I spent part of the day watching a dvd featuring Donny Osmond as Joseph and Joan Collins as Potiphar's wife. You don't know the meaning the term 'cheesy' until you have seen this film. It was truly dreadful. Then we had a staff meeting to decide on a modus operandi. I had assumed that I was expected to direct the show, until it was pointed out that I wouldn't be there for much of the rehearsal time. So who IS going to direct it? We're too busy announced the acting Head. (There are only 2 fulltime teachers at the school and the non-teaching Head is off on long-term sick leave.) So a proper show, in a theatre, with lights, sound and costumes is going to be directed by - er - nobody? Hmm...

The week ended on a high note, as Friday's lessons on Hoy went really well - a first - and I let them spend the last lesson attempting to teach me Scottish dancing. Me dancing - always good for a laugh. As for why I want to learn to dance, that'll have to wait till a future post. There was a beautiful sunset as I was leaving - photos above. It was just as frosty clear on the last day of term, when we had a fun day. I let the boys out to let off steam and they put me on the zip-line: they were laughing too much at me screaming to take a photo, so I include one of Ryan on it instead. The calm one was from the ferry that same morning: you can supply, in your imagination, the Viking longships that once sailed these same waters, gazed at the beautiful mountains of Hoy and, with that innate sense of the poetic with which those soulful Scandinavians were blessed, decided to call it 'High Island.'

So I was in a good mood and had jolly plans for a nice long frosty walk today, but walked out the front door and slipped on black ice on the concrete path, so I now feel achey and bruised and generally wretched. Curses be upon Orkney Islands Council and their bloody penny-pinching council house design: massive long sloping path with no safety rail and facing north so ice, once formed, never melts. I've hurt my back, my neck, an elbow and a wrist, so once I've finished this, HW Bear and I are crawling back into bed with a hot whisky and a nice book.

Happy New Year, one and all. May 2008 bring you health and happiness and, for those among you in the teaching profession, less marking.