On Friday 23rd January we revived Burns Night at Bell View, two days ahead of the Bard’s birthday proper. We like to think Rabbie, a man not known for strict adherence to convention, would have forgiven us. It has been a while since the haggis last had its moment here, and we very much hope it won’t be so long again: this is exactly the sort of tradition a community like ours needs, an excuse to come together in the depths of winter, warm up with something substantial and fragrant, and then argue, with considerable passion and mixed success, about the correct answer to a question on the reign of Charles II.
The haggis arrived with all due ceremony, paraded in with rather more pomp than a pudding of oatmeal and offal might strictly warrant, and was duly addressed. The Address to a Haggis is not a short poem, nor an easy one for those of us whose Scots is more enthusiastic than accurate, but it was delivered with conviction, the knife went in at the appointed moment, and the haggis, to its credit, took it well.
Then we ate it. Haggis, neeps and tatties, served with the kind of straightforward generosity that characterises everything Bell View does well. Haggis makes no particular claims to elegance, but it is warming and hearty and exactly right for a January evening in north Northumberland, where the wind off the hills reminds you that Scotland is only just up the road.
Then the quiz. Rounds ranged from the genuinely testing to the cheerfully obscure, teams from the diplomatically confident to the loudly certain, and the atmosphere built through the evening from polite to thoroughly engaged. There were disputes. There were moments of collective triumph. There were individual answers of such inspired wrongness that they became, instantly, the stuff of Bell View legend.
It was the sort of evening Bell View was made for: good food, good company, and a reason to be together when the days are short and the sofa calls. Thank you to everyone who came and made it such a wonderful night. We fully intend to do it again next January, so consider this fair warning … and do start revising.