So, while we are on the subject of things Nationalist, tomorrow is St Andrew’s Day. Not something that normally sits high in my priorities but, back in 2007, the Braw Leader decided that we should all have a public holiday to celebrate our Scottishness and, heaven help us, to launch a winter festival running all the way through to Rrrrrabbie Burns Night.
The first year of "voluntary" holiday was a spectacular failure. Well, everyone wants to swap a day off in May for one at the end of November, don’t they? Never daunted, an Act of the Scottish Parliament was passed to designate the glorious day officially. Most people just ignore it but I get a whole Monday holiday to ponder my tartan ancestry (assuming I have any).
This year many more people have had a day off by default. Yes, folks, the snow is back, and with a vengeance. A few flaky wisps on Friday evening have become a crunchy, drifty, slippery, long weekend deluge of Scandinavian proportions. Schools are closed, cars are stuck, and our local Co-op’s shelves have been cleared as if World War 3 is about to break out. Ah, well, it’s all very picturesque and all that, but we only just survived last year’s record breaking winter. This year it has started 3 weeks earlier.
Meanwhile, old St Andrew seems to have got about a bit, and so the inhabitants of Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and bits of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Malta will all be celebrating their patron saint’s day tomorrow as well.
The forecast for Malta is a sunny 21 degrees. But then again, their schools are probably open.
fortynine + one up 