Happy Hogmanay!

Hogmanay is just like New Years except that three-quarters of the way through Auld Lang Syne a mosh pit breaks out. Really. There we were, standing in a circle holding hands--some of us singing the words loudly, the rest of us mumbling along--when around the third verse, our companions began hurling themselves against each other. Something about entering into a circle? But when everyone in the circle tries to enter into the circle at once, you get a mosh pit? Then people just jumped around and banged into each other for the rest of the song.

But I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Yesterday was a pretty normal work day. Josh and I reported down to the staff room at 8:30am. He started up the boiler and I checked the veg section of the store to make sure everything was stocked. Then we bagged and sorted some stuff. Bruce wanted some more black kale, so we ventured out into the snow to see how the fields looked. The entire patch--and it is quite large--had been decimated by various wildlife. While out there, we scared off a flock of pigeons, four pheasants and a hare the size of a small dog. I think we managed to gather up less than 2lbs of kale, the rest of the stalks had either been eaten by animals or crushed by the snow.

Work ended around 3:30pm and after a tea break, we walked over to the town of Falkland to pick up some rum to make our evening's drinking chocolate that much more fun. When we got back, I started cooking. I made a bunch of food for the evening, mostly because I could. There were a lot of over ripe bananas in the stock room, so I made banana bread (here's the recipe, just substitute 3-4 bananas for the pumpkin and walnuts for the pumpkin seeds.) Next I whipped up a batch of red lentils, because most of the people on this farm are vegetarians. Finally, I made about a quart and a half of drinking chocolate and spiked it with half a bottle of demerara rum.

The party was held in the farm's Bothie. It's a small space and the 12-15 people in there made it quite crowded. Some of the girls managed to clear out enough room for a dance floor, which if you could see the space you would understand what a feat of furniture arrangement this really was. The night consisted of music, dancing, drinking and chatting, which is a pretty fun way to spend the night/wee early hours of the new year.

Today we will have a post-hangover brunch and then a New Years Day hike up the mountain. I hope my folks have a good soup party and that the rest of you have a pleasant and refreshing start to your new decade!