The McLaren of McLaren...

aye, himself, ...invited us for a Burns Night last night. Those of us who paid for the tickets, mind.

One assumes that The McLaren of McLaren is the chief of the clan McLaren, though it does not mention that specifically on the British Embassy Tbilisi website (he's Her Majesty's loyal ambassador). His photo, interestingly, has some resemblance to some old Scottish portrait, particularly with that red tie.

Onywize, as some say in Ayrshire. The Burns Night was held in the Kaiserbrau restaurant, a German outfit. Hmm. The reason for the rather odd 5.30 pm start was soon explained - at 8 pm the Scotland England rugby match was due to start (this was the promised 'Entertainment').

About 100 to 150 people had gathered, sitting at long trestle tables where after a little while the benches began to remind us of church pews. Then a wee guy in a kilt, a maroon jacket and a frilly shirt (much like the 'ice cream cone' that the Scottish media reported Sean Connery to be wearing at the opening of the Scottish parliament) began to play the pipes, quite nicely. Turns out that this was HM's loyal Ambassador - he was the only piper on the spot. Does this make him a 'musician'? I wonder where he learnt that, then, and more to the point, which school he went to, given his admitted lack of a Scottish accent ... Seems to have a nice sense of humour, though, almost dangerously so in his role as a diplomat.

The evening proceeded in fits and starts - the quality of the address to the haggis loses something when someone has to read it from a book, in the process struggling to put on his glasses. The delivery was not like Jim Paterson's in Vilnius, or Jim McKean's in Ayrshire (though the second Jim is more famous for 'Holy Willie's Prayer'). The haggis was not stabbed - what with having the book in one hand - more like gently prodded. Many non-Scots struggled a bit with the rather large helping of haggis that appeared in front of us. It is really rather dry, even with the mashed potatoes....

.... and the evening wore on. There was plenty of wine, whisky (blended only) and the mood became merrier. Thank goodness I left before the rugby match - Scotland lost!

The bunches of snowdrops on the table reminded me of my time at Finlaystone, where at this time of year four or six weeks were spent 'snowdropping'. The estate was covered in snowdrops, with them popping out of the ground in different corners in different weeks. 'Snowdropping' meant picking fifty snowdrops and putting them in a bunch with three ivy leaves. Twice a week we would send dozens and dozens and dozens of bunches of snowdrops to the flower market in Glasgow. Everyone was roped into this job, from age 12 to over 70. Consider, if you will, the temperature in which snowdrops thrive, the height of snowdrops above the ground, and the delicacy of the little stems (you could not do it wearing full gloves) - and you will have an idea of the pleasure this work brought.