Burns Night

So, my first non-French title when I'm in France...I thought it needed it! A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, or Burns Night - and we had it in July!

Burns suppers are most common in Scotland and Northern Ireland but occur wherever there are Burns Clubs, Scottish Societies, expatriate Scots, or aficionados of Burns' poetry. There is a particularly strong tradition of them in southern New Zealand's main city Dunedin, of which Burns' nephew Thomas Burns was a founding father. The first suppers were held in Ayrshire at the end of the 18th century by Robert Burns' friends on the anniversary of his death, 21 July, In Memoriam and they have been a regular occurrence ever since.

So for the first time I tried haggis, neeps and tatties (haggis, potatoes and turnips) with bagpipe music playing and us all dressed up in tartan. Now these are the blankets we provide for our customers, so I'm sure that we would get the prize for most inventive use of said blankets! So, onto the picture...this is Jen and Heather, Jen rocking the Braveheart look while Heather went for the Greek toga-esque design, accessorised with a baguette of course. The view you can see behind us is our view from where we live looking down upon the sea. Nothing like an idyllic location!

Normally today would be our day off, but unfortunately yesterday we received a text to tell us we had to stay in for our linen delivery (time and date of which couldn't be changed). So instead we had Kids Club, and had to think of things to do that were on-site and close to our house. So we decided the best thing to do would be to do a "Dragon Egg Hunt"...so we filled a load of balloons with water and hid them round the emplacements for the children to find. We then split them into three teams, two large teams of "goodies" and two "baddies" whose job was to break the "eggs" as the "goodies" were taking them to the "sanctuaries". And boy did it work well; all the children were asking us later on whether we would be doing another "hunt" soon. When the weather got too hot, and the delivery had arrived, we then changed the game into a massive water fight which involved the entirety of the guests on our part of the campsite...all very fun, for adults and children alike I would say!

Was such a lovely evening at Jen's parents, it is starting to feel like we are also on holiday with them!