Up the Ben and Down the Boozer

Hogmanay Happens Without Us

December, Edinburgh

Hogmanay, Edinburgh's enormously popular New Year's festival, will be missing our company this year.  It's a long way to go for a party and our Massachusetts hometown is promising us midnight fireworks.  Maybe next time.

Our first Hogmanay was adventure and we liked it so much we did it again.  And again. When they do that pan-global tv midnight sweep after Times Square on New Year's Eve, it's Hogmanay that shows cascading booms of color exploding over Edinburgh Castle. They do not show we two eating fish and chips outside in the icy chill off Rose  Street  as we have forgotten to book anywhere for dinner, or watching  the Proclaimers in Princes St Gardens, the only ones stone cold sober as we have forgotten to bring a thermos of champagne, a flask of whiskey or a  plastic liter of  Buckfast, the alcopop choice of the untutored teenagers swarming the six digit member street party that rages outside the Gardens. 

Hogmanay is music and it lasts for days. Determined not to miss a thing,  we join the world's largest Strip the Willow, fork out 7 quid so we can carry real  fire in the Torchlight Procession from Parliament Square to Calton Hill, get a little teary over the thousand massed pipers in full regalia parading through the dark night, and jump in and out of the Princes Street Party which seems to have overspread from its original venue despite Edinburgh's Constabulary's best effort. We once even bought tickets for the candlelit classical Concert in St Giles which some people swear by but it seemed too sombre a start to a whoopee night and  I am pretty sure I could see chilblains creeping up my legs in the icy Cathedral chill. The Keilidh is always sold out before we commit but we grab tickets for the Concert in the Gardens which puts us in an excellent if slightly deafening position for the Midnight Moment fireworks pinged off Edinburgh's 7 hills: Blackford, Braid, Calton, Castle Hill and Rock, Corstorphine,  Craigmillar and of course Arthur's Seat.

We have not (yet) joined the Loony Dook plunge into the sea on New Year's Day, but there's still next year. 

Once the fireworks grand finale has come to a crashing end, there is a throat- choking moment only partially caused by the  clouds of smoke around the Castle. Just like the Whos down in Whoville post- Grinch, the entire city sings. Auld Lang Syne pours out of every street, window, hill and stage, even  native-speaking Japanese lip synchers join in. There is a terrific roar from those whose heads are going to be very sore in the morning and the live music crashes on.

We make our way through the crowd of silly- hatted partiers past the naked man dancing on top of the ice cream truck and  students mocking our American pronunciation of Happy New Year (Happy New Yearrr with the emphasis on a light and upwardly inflected year in Scots and Happy Neww Yeer with a dead heavy flat fall on year in Amer) to one of the many strategically- sited  free bus stops which the City provides to return revelers from whence they came. We climb up to the top deck front windows as we leave the celebrations for  dark, snowy North Berwick, weaving our way around the eastern side of the Firth of Forth through Musselburgh and Prestonpans, Cockenzie and  Port Seton. The bus makes an unscheduled stop to pick up an inebriated teenager  running after it in the snow who climbs in for a round of laughing jibes with the group of girl gigglers in the back and stops again when he changes his mind and wants to get off.  

Gullane and Dirleton are winking their lights out as is  North Berwick when we  get to the end of the line. Walking slowly with the other stragglers under a star-lit night sky, we hum a little Auld Lang Syne to the sea gently booming beside us. 

 

 AULD LANG SYNE 
Words adapated from a traditional song by Rabbie Burns (1759-96) 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne? 

CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup of kindness yet, For auld lang syne! And surely ye'll be yourpint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine, And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet, For auld lang syne! We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'dthe gowans fine, But we've wander'd monie a weary fit, Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn Frae morning sun till dine, But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin auld lang syne. And there's a hand my trusty fiere, And gie's a hand o thine, And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, For auld lang syne 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Galway Love

Galway, November

We went for the music but stayed for the romance. Wandering the German   Christmas Market (bratwurst and beer garden) which occupies the green space in Eyre Square for  a month before Christmas, we joined the pedestrian parade looking for The Perfect Pub.  Slurping salty north Atlantic oysters by the fire at the iconic Quays  was lovely, but besides us, a Guinness -slinging couple at the bar, and the oysters; the place  was empty.  Outside, the pedestrian shopping streets were packed with shoppers, revelers. and street musicians, despite the increasing chill as night rolled in. Joining them, we looked at merino cardigans, Irish baby bibs ("make mine a pint of milk") and eyeballed a window full of fiddles, guitars, whistles and accordians while shopkeepers talked economic disaster. Line -caught haddock and chips from McDonagh's eaten on the quay by the roiling Corrib; the fragrant, steamy fish  warmed our hands and bellies against the increasingly Arctic air.

Live music in Ireland frequently starts right around when I start yawning, but Tig Coili has two sessions where one bleeds into the other at  6:30 and 9:30, so we circled back to grab a seat. This  engaging little pub is sandwiched between  Mainguard and Shop Street creating  a sort of  this side/ that side music experience as visitors exit and enter through opposing doors. The musicians weren't there  at 7 but we pulled stools and waited. One by one  players sauntered in, dropped an instrument box on the bench, hugged a few people, took a drink from the bar and went outside for a smoke.

By 8 the place was packed and the music (oddly, Irish pub bands consist  increasingly of banjos, balalaikas, and bozoukis) rockin'. The two doors opened and shut with frigid regularity but the couple fooling around in the entryway held my attention as they beamed enough warmth to heat up the entire room. I caught the long haired young woman's eye and she held up...a ring, so it was no surprise when her tall, beer- happy companion  rapped his pint glass for silence and in Scandinavian -accented English announced that he had just asked "this wooman" to marry him and she had said yes.

A round (ale) on the house along with a group  congratulation with many well wishers, and the band played on. The music got cheerier and the craic was cookin'. The band dedicated the next song and two more glasses of ale to the newly engaged duo.  I suspected the song (in Gaelic) might not have been completely dedicated to the  joys of love and marriage as several  giggling flat caps at the bar slapped each other at the refrains, but it didn't matter.  People  took it upon themselves to congratulate the young couple and drink to their happiness.  Cameras snapped and there were repeated cries of "Slainte!".  The band asked if they would be requiring their services at the wedding and the couple said sure, if they happened to have a gig in Stockhom that week.

Looking around the gathering as the music played over and around the happy, Guinness-fueled gathering, I thought  I could see each one of us imagining this couples' life--sharing the news with friends and family, getting married, raising a family, growing old. Would they always cherish this night? This place? These well wishers? Would they come back here for anniversaries? Bring the kids? Would they dance to this music at their wedding?

We sat through another set and braced ourselves for the dark stroll back to   our lodging. Opening the door into the cold night leaving the fire and the light and the music behind us, we held hands and walked back into our own lives.