Nation

A few weeks ago I rejoined the Scottish National Party (SNP).  This decision followed weeks, months, of reading, thinking, discussion and not a little soul searching.  I am not a political animal by nature - I am more free radical than party hack - but I feel a change coming and I want to be there, involved, in the front line.

I left the party years ago, disillusioned by what I saw as a lack of will among the Scottish people.  I feel that will is growing now.  The SNP won an epic, historic and bloody wonderful victory in the Scottish election last May.  Since then I have felt a swell of confidence - a positive buzz in the air.  It might be my imagination... it is probably the flags.  

Saltire

Saltires started popping up all over Edinburgh. Everywhere I looked I saw the blue and white fluttering in the breeze.  It brought me to a realisation.  I love that flag.

I make no apology - I think the Saltire (or St Andrews Cross) is beautiful.  I tried, during my years in the wilderness, I really tried to love the Union Jack.  I can't.  It just looks so angry to me, so strident.  But the Saltire...  Look at it.  Sky blue, gentle, loving, welcoming.  I look at that flag, my flag, and I honestly feel my heart swell.  You can't fight a visceral reaction like that.  As The MacNeill said: "You can't deny what you are".

And what I am is a Scot.  Not British.  Again, I tried that but it just didn't fit.  For a long time I couldn't even say the words - "I'm British" - they would just stick in my throat.  My little-Briton facade finally began to crack back around the time of the last UK election.

Before continuing I should probably make something clear:  I am not anti-England.  I am PRO-SCOTLAND.  I just want the best for my country and her people.  I have English friends, one in particular who's friendship I value dearly.  So please believe that I don't wish England any harm.  However...

The day after the election of 2010 I was in Arles, in France - lunching in the sun (sigh).  I had voted, by post, before leaving home and was keen to learn the results so I questioned a group of English people at the next table.  The resulting conversation preyed on my mind during the following months.

First of all, they were really pleased by the apparent Tory victoy(!). This clearly marked them as persons different from myself.  However, the real issue, the thing that worked on me subconsciously afterwards, was their manner towards me.  They were not rude, exactly. They were just fantastically condescending.  One man in particular talked down to me like I'd been brought in just for his entertainment.  One of those entertainingly troublesome jocks he'd heard about somewhere. Bear in mind, I did not at any point, mention independence to these people.  This guy brought it up, then proceeded to ridicule the very idea.  I did not argue.  I was on holiday, I was a-political and I just wanted to hear who'd be governing 'my country' when I got home.  I bit my tongue and stopped talking to them as soon as possible.

But their attitude rankled.  Why on earth, if we were all one Great British People, should I be condescended to in that way?  I've travelled a bit.  Whenever I've met a fellow Scot abroad it has been like coming upon a long lost friend.  These englanders made me feel more of a foreigner among them than I did among the French people round about us.  We were not the same people.

So, that incident planted a seed in my mind which, fed by the great result in Holyrood, and watered by my heartfelt love for the Saltire, has flourished into a renewed and shiny desire for self determination in Scotland.  Like I said, it's not about the English.  It's about the Scots.

There is an old, lighthearted and rather cliched Scottish toast:

Here's tae us
Wha's like us?
Damn few
And they're a' deid 

We are very fond of listing the many, many...many things we Scots have invented or discovered.  We are innovators and explorers, writers, painters, warriors, poets and philosophers.  Or we were.  For a long time I think, as a people, we'd lost our way.  Scots are prone to be backward looking, dwelling on past glories rather than looking to the future.  Fearing the unknown, perhaps.  But we are artists and thinkers - we must grasp the nettle or, in fact, the thistle!  We are neds and numpties too, of course, but we shouldn't let that stop us.

Alba gu bràth

Resolve

I don’t normally make ‘New Year Resolutions’.  I believe that, if some aspect of your behaviour or personality requires adjustment, you should make the necessary changes as soon as you realise the need. To wait until the turn of the year seems daft and rather artificial to me.

That said, this new year comes just at the end of a difficult time for me.  The second half of 2011 was, as I have previously stated, a bit of a shitstorm.  Some of my traumas I've already shared with you, other events are known to almost no-one.  However, the cumulative effect was to produce one of the unhappiest and most emotionally gruelling periods of my life.

As I emerge back into the light I'm looking forward, hopefully, to what can really only be a better year.  I've learned that, no matter how much I want to, I can't control every aspect of my life.  I do however, have power over my own reactions and responses to what the world throws at me.  Therefore, I have made some personal resolutions which, co-incidentally, coincided with the new year...

I resolve to strive, in 2012, to be a calmer, happier and less mental person than I was during much of 2011.  That way was just too exhausting.  Wish me luck.

Wish

xmas wish

The other day my lovely new friend Mary sent me her kind wishes for the future.  Perhaps the spirit of the message just appeals to my Celtic heart but I found the words beautiful, moving and rather stirring.  I want to share them with you too...

May there be change left over after every Bill
May there always be a worthy cause that strengthens your fighting spirit
May you always have Courage to fight the Good fight
May there always be a song that you are moved to sing
May there be Strings, Pipes, and Drums to inspire your dance
May there be a pint, a glass, a Dram, or a mug to lift in cheer
May you Embrace Laughter with a tight group of Friends
May you Vanquish all petty Drama
May your Family be the source of your Strength
May there always be work that animates your Pride
May there be someone who enters your room and makes your heart beat faster, your smile be gladder, and your eyes light with love
May there be a warm hearth for your feet at the end of a long day
May there be a young person who inspires you to remember to feel Childish wonder
May there Always be Learning to keep your mind and wits sharp
And because surely, your cause is always righteous and just and driven by your love of Humanity, May your Enemies be rendered to silence and deafness

Seasonal felicitations to one and all! 

Yuletide

Callanish Stones, Isle of Lewis

I love Yule.  This is, by far, the best solstice of the year!  In June we're saying goodbye to the sun as we start our journey away from it - towards winter.  Now, in December, we commemorate the commencement of our swing back towards spring.  What better reason for festivity?

Also, it is an excellent reason for lights and celebration in the darkest days of the year.

I've just been out to watch the sunrise...ish.  The cloud cover is so thick I couldn't really see the sun.  I walked along the dark river bank, listening to birdsong and the rush of the water.  After a while I realised I could see the field on the opposite bank - I surmised that the sun had risen.  I came home  :)

Now for a hearty breakfast - I have a busy day ahead.

Merry Yuletide best beloveds!

Release

The arctic winds have subsided for a while and we have decided to go with the tail end of a tropical hurricane instead.  This made for a blustery but enjoyable trundle down to the bottle bank this morning. Ten minutes crashing and smashing in the name of Mother Earth is a fine way for a chick to start the day - and to sort out a few of her issues at the same time.

In the afternoon I went to the rugby.  My local boys got beaten but, considering they were playing a team from the Borders (where babes use rugby balls as teething rings), they did not loose too badly.  Once darkness fell I had a wee bit bonfire in the garden - the light, the smell, the sparks - most satisfying.

I've been doing some deep and serious thinking this week but today I have been letting it all go.  I've had enough of thinking.  Time to get on with life.

Unreconstructed

I've done a good deal of moaning this year about the state of my relationship... and to be entirely honest it has been pretty bad at times.  However, throughout it all I keep surprising myself by being less upset or more forgiving than perhaps I should be.

The thing is, I don't really mind.  He can be a bit grumpy - I find that kind of adorable.  He's uncommunicative - this is but a challenge to my own communication skills.  His lack of consideration and habitual failure to express his feelings - an excellent opportunity to practise understanding and forgiveness.  It's mad, I know, but that's how it is.

What is going on?  I am strong-willed and deeply feminist but this unashamedly unreconstructed man has sent me loopy.  It seems he is exactly, entirely what I need.  My dear Dolly talks about Yin and Yang. That's just what we have, I think.  He has drive, I have imagination. I'm whimsical, he's responsible.  He's a big bear and I'm his wee smout.  Yin and yang.

I get annoyed that he is so epically poor at keeping in touch - it is the 21st century, man - the Communication Age!  But then, he is very old-fashioned.  He opens doors for me, helps me on with my coat and occasionally tries to make me 'act like a lady', i.e. stop cursing like a sailor - bless.  OK, he often does not reply to my messages (I do have chatty fingers) but I know, I am certain, that when I need him he will come.

We are different in a lot of ways.  Varied interests.  Wildly differing musical taste (in that, I have some!).  He's something of an exhibitionist and I'm shy to the point of sometimes becoming uncomfortable when people look at me for too long.  But basically, I believe, we are the same.

We are both passionate, loquacious (when face to face) and fascinated by language.  We talk about everything, just everything.  He feeds my mind.  He is the most interesting person I know and I learn from him every day.  We laugh.  When I'm with him I feel wrapped in a golden bubble of warmth.  When I'm upset or anxious, his very presence calms me, his voice soothes me.  He makes me happy.

He's made me unhappy too but only because of things he didn't say or do - because of miscommunication or misunderstanding.  I don't think he ever purposefully hurts me.  Over these last months our relationship has been stormy but a number of outside events have affected us too and he has never let me down - not when it mattered.

Obviously I can't know how he feels or what he really thinks but I know my own mind.  I know what I want.  Also, I believe that he will love me in the way I want to be loved.  So, I trust what my heart tells me, what his actions say (and what he tells me himself in the quiet moments).  I trust and I love and I really, really don't mind.

History2

Shamed by my relative ignorance in comparison to some of my chums, I resolve to start reading up on my country's history.

I am very keen on pre-history.  My feeling is: if folk were able to write stuff down they were far too modern for my taste.  However, my patchy knowledge of Scotland's post-neolithic period has been brought home by my inability to engage in some recent debates with chums.  Not in any sensible way, at least.

I know some stuff, of course.  I know about the Wars of Independence - William Wallace is my hero and I practically had the Declaration of Arbroath tattooed on my butt.  However, as with most things, the rest of my historic knowledge is more romantic than factual in nature.  This should and will be remedied.  I have somehow, at some point, obtained a copy of Magnus Magnus Magnusson's  Scotland: The Story of a Nation.  In the first 12 pages he has succinctly summed up the first 7000+ years of Scotland's human occupation and I am nearing the edge of my knowledge... until we reach 1286 at any rate.

Chapter 2 is entitled 'The Romans in Scotland'.  What?  Come now Mr Magnusmagnusson!  We all know that all the Romans ever did for us was build a couple of walls and then sod off to Newcastle to hide out for a few hundred years.  No?  We shall, no doubt, soon discover the facts.  See you in a thousand years or so...