Burns Day

'We all go a bit pink on the sun, but only Robert Burns', or something along those lines, we sang at the last song-writing weekend.
Today, we hied over to McSis's for a tartan clad afternoon to celebrate Burns night, in the daytime and five days late.
I wore McDad's McCallum tartan shirt and a tired face; Offsprog One wore a McCallum tartan shirt with badly-inserted sleeves and deerhorn buttons that I made a few years ago and couldn't wear because I was so cross that I'd made it so badly.
McSis wore a red tartan dress from Edinburgh; little Bruv wore his McCallum tartan tie.
He had wanted to address the 'Great Chieftain of the pudden race', but declined the duty and Paul-the-sax-player-with-Helen-and-the-Horns, who also happens to be my brother in law, remembered it from the year before (Uncle James had taught it to him years ago, without shouting: see below) and did the honours.
The table, too, wore tartan, and we ate the haggis, with bashed neeps, and mashed tatties, reminiscing about McDad's ancient bags of crisps that he saved till they were stale and then served up to his guests in little silver bowls, and the multiple giant bottles of ginger beer with dying fizz that were served up at mealtimes.
And the time when normally mild-mannered Uncle James, used to working with difficult teenagers as Head of an Inner-City Comprehensive, shouted at us all in furious frustration as we failed to understand his complex instructions on how to dance The Duke Of Perth, with a CD of Jimmy Shand And His Band merrily playing away on the stereo in the background.
McSis's youngest son was delighted that I like the Super Mario Brothers soundtrack. The adults talked about all sorts of subjects you're not supposed to talk about at table, with the teenagers at the other end of the table straining to hear what the adults were yakking on about.
How did I know Offsprog Two went to bed at three-thirty? Well, being mother, I could not rest till she was home (2.45) and then lay in bed trying to identify the strange noises that her and her friends were making downstairs. What was that rattling on tin? Too delicate for money, too loud for cereal... I tossed and turned.
This morning, an empty saucepan told the tale of a late-night pasta extravaganza.
P.S. Sarah, I did like the necklace you were wearing!