21 April 2010 Kilt and Tam o’Shanter

Molly Bear sports her new kilt and tam o’shanter, just in time for our trip to Scotland next week. Scotland is also our Country Club country this month. (That does feel like a bit of a cheat, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, this way I don’t have to cook anything like haggis.) Trip preparations and Scotland research have collided in a very pleasant way. In addition to listening to traditional and contemporary Scottish music on Footstompin.com, I’ve been reading Robert Burns poetry to Sam from the BBC’s excellent website on Burns. The other day I read her “Tam o’Shanter”. I think she understood about as much as I did, which wasn’t much. All those “weels” and “twas” and “lang” and “doons”– the vowels just about swallow one’s tongue to pronounce them. But we enjoyed the tale of Tam’s wild night and the witches’ chase, and I was interested to learn that the “gude blue bonnet” he wears would later be named after him, making “tam o’shanter” an eponym.

Molly’s tam o’shanter is made from an old sock of AC’s and a blue pom-pom. The kilt is felt and I’m reasonably sure the pattern is original. We’ll see, next week, I suppose, if there are any Scots clad in pink, green, and orange tartan.