Hullaballoo

To celebrate the Scottish Homecoming celebrations, McBobo and I have just been listening to Pipeline on radio Scotland "the definitive pipe music radio programme." Even though I am 5/8 Scottish, bagpiping does not run in my veins. Nevertheless, I wanted to make absolutely sure. It was a matter of endurance, and having no telly, necessity. It began with a dissonant melancholy bagpipe solo played by a Mr Johnson playing a tune composed by Mr Johnson senior. The music is obviously designed to express all the atmosphere of a dark and uncompelling glen (valley) on a wintry evening. It is also a test of mental health. If you can listen to the whole programme without reaching for a blunt instrument, or indeed anything to end the existential angst of engaging with the music, then you are definitely not depressed. McBobo ventured that he now understood why we have whisky in Scotterland, highly prized for mind numbing when faced with prolonged droning.

And for Loth, NMJ and anyone else familiar with the Numptorium (Loth's turn of phrase) which pretends to be our Scottish Parliament, you can use Google translate to transform this post into Scots. Yes, there are people out there who can request a translator to be present at a Scottish parliament event, translating proceedings into Scots. Interestingly, no one working for the Scottish parliament speaks Scots, so any true Scots calling them up, need to get a 'friend or relative' to do so on their behalf. Unbelievable! Happy Homecoming everyone.

It may have been galey, hailing, raining, and murky grey outside, but I was determined to make the hour long walk to work, even if it did mean dressing like Shackleton and ruining the spokes of my funky leopard skin brolly. I braved the elements without so much as a spare packet of Tictacs to break the monotony of being buffetted about like I was in Buffety Land (younger son's invention).

The boys were quite taken with the power of the rain and danced and sang their way home, their pace hastened when I told them I had bought baguettes and Milky Ways as a treat. I created a Milky Way Melt, the most glorious way to eat a humble chocolate bar. I heated the baguette in the oven, sliced the Milky Way and Melted it over the bread in the microwave. For a few precious moments, I was in chocolate heaven.

We are now nesting more in our temporary abode and endeavouring to make it more homely with candles, tarot cards, incense and some quirky lights. The boys' bedroom is freezing, so we are back to extra blankets, hot baths and hot water bottles. Oh, and special hot milk and honey at bedtime.

Yesterday, I decided that the end of term was far too long in coming. I am bored of November and it nobbly, narrow minded meanness of light and warmth. I want some drama, something spectacular.

McBöbø writes on life with Hulla: When I was a lad, there was an easy acid test to spot the difference between a Dutch-Polish house and an English one. The smell of boiled cabbage in English ones (due to lack of cooking interest, I think ours probably smelt of Fish Fingers, but that's another issue).

Obviously, this was in the 60s, the cabbage's nadir. A simple time when school dinner ladies, alive to the potential life threatening qualities of this richly coloured Brassica, would boil it until it lost all molecular cohesion. Second only to puddles of frogs spawn called Spinach in my schoolboy vomitorium list.

Now, of course we live in more enlightened times. The cabbage is now a wonder food. Oh how those school dinner ladies must have laughed as they saw their former inmates voluntarily buying coleslaw in later life: not just cabbage, raw cabbage at that!

I however, still carry the scars of those far off culinary days, when the Prawn Cocktail was the epitome of social sophistication. I now just about manage to smuggle cabbage into my diet. Cut into strips the size of postage stamps and slipped into soups or onion & mushroom mixtures, I proudly proclaim to my beloved Hullaballoo ... there's a little bit of cabbage in here.

By the slyness of my tone, she realises she's meant to be delighted by my stealth nutritional efforts. "But" she complains gently, "I like cabbage". Naturally I ignore her failure to appreciate my conspiratorial cooking. Like her attempts to phone our boys when they are with their father by causally calling another family's home. I assume she's one digit short of a full telephone number:

(Wee boy) "Hello"
(Hulla) "Hello darling, mummy here, how are you today my sweetheart"
(Wee boy) "Fine, thank you ... {slightly alarmed} but I don't think you're my mummy"

But I don't care, I'm delighted to be eating microscopic portions of smuggled cabbage, and haven't had to resort to adding bacon, yet. Hulla can pretend to like it if she likes, just as she's started asking Wee Boy's father on new accidental phone calls if he's got her email...

(Wee boy's father) "No, what email?"
(Hulla) "Oh, you're not my ex husband are you"
(Wee boy's father) {roars with laughter}

Apparently slankets (blankets you can wear like a shirt) are all the rage. And here is a rather snazzy leopard skin one. Good news if you want to stay warm, and bad news if you forget it was made for someone 7 feet tall and get up suddenly to go to the toilet, to your injury! I am assuming they come with stilts to solve this problem, otherwise they represent a health and safety minefield. Or perhaps it's just the front half of a pantomime outfit. I really can't decide.

YS struck up a chat with the man next to him at the barbers. " Are your parents dead?" he asked with his best winning smile. When told that they were he asked how. At this point I intervened to divert YS towards a picture in Auto Gear magazine in which I had taken a sudden interest. His new companian was very good natured and told me not to worry, he was happy to answer. He told YS his parents died through cancer and a heart attack. YS nodded sagely, "well, it could have been worse. At least they didn't die of the plague." GULP!