December and getting ready for Christmas

Tuesday, 1 January 2019

Happy New Year's Day to all! I have been home in North Carolina for the holidays, and it's been even busier than it normally is. Three weeks have flown past since I came home. Before that, a whole lot happened--here are a few highlights:

• Exams for the first term were done in early December. We all went for a very rewarding couple of pints that evening at the Blackfriars. Whew.
• With a classmate, I spent a lovely weekend in Sheffield, England for the Festival of Village Carols (organized by one of our professors, Ian Russell). We helped out wherever we could, and both of us played in the orchestra.
• A group of us went to a delightful evening at St Machar's Cathedral in Aberdeen, taking part in a Carol Service. What an amazing way to feel ready for Christmas...
• Ceilidh! Our Scottish-Polish singing group at the Elphinstone Institute hosted a great ceilidh dance, with lots of classic Scottish ceilidh dances, and a few Polish folk dances as well. Not only was the music wonderful, so was the traditional Polish food!
• I spent another lovely weekend in Midmar, Aberdeenshire, walking with friends, seeing prehistoric spots, doing musical things, and taking pictures of the beautiful areas around Midmar, Echt, and Banchory. 

Some highlights captured during these adventures...

A trip to Sheffield! We were invited to participate in a very old tradition of multiple-part singing of carols. We were actually in the charming community of Grenoside, just outside Sheffield, in south Yorkshire. Just walking through the village takes you back about 400 years, and there are much older settlements beneath the moss and trees of the parklands around the town.

Fascinating bits of houses and dwellings...an old millstone set into an ancient stone wall, enormous thick slates on a roof, a weather vane bearing witness to the mining history here.











The countryside is beautiful, open, with rolling hills all around. Not far away is the Peak District and the Pennines, a beautiful range of low mountains. Think Wordsworth, Coleridge, Yorkshire Dales. The name Grenoside is probably derived from Anglo-Saxon and Norse words meaning quarry and hills, and it is well-known for its sandstone quarries. The area around Sheffield is also famous for steelmaking and cutlery. 







Walking with our wonderful hosts on top of a hill ridge above Grenoside, enjoying the brisk wind sweeping soft rain across the valleys, with just a soft hint of a rainbow...

The old Red Lion Inn was where we spent our first evening. It was the beginning of the Christmas season, and there are regular carol singing sessions of traditional carols that have been sung in Grenoside for centuries. For me, and for many from the US, some of the words are quite familiar, but they are set to different tunes to the ones I associate with them. And they are lovely. There is something absolutely awe-inspiring about being in a small pub packed with people, all singing with great enthusiasm, in multi-part harmonies!

There was more! The Grenoside Sword Dancers (http://grenosword2010.apwb.com/) took advantage of a break in the soft rain to entertain everyone outside for a few minutes. 

The Festival of Village Carols also hosted some special guests from Sardinia, an ensemble of singers who performed some traditional Sardinian songs. The old Red Lion Inn reverberated with incredibly deep, resonant harmonies, and the pub audience was obviously intrigued and enthusiastic.

The next day was rehearsal time for the performance in the evening, featuring carols from both Sheffield and Darbyshire, and joined by several choruses from neighboring villages. Playing in the orchestra was a great experience, as we each played soprano, alto, tenor, and bass lines, according to our instruments' ranges and the balance of the sound with the audience's voices.

View from the orchestra pit - Prof. Ian Russell directs the musicians and also the community singing from the audience. Some of you might recognize a friend and band partner of mine, Julie Gorka, who is playing fiddle in the orchestra. She made a surprise last-minute trip to join us in Sheffield!

Did I mention that we had a pretty wide variety of instruments? Here's one not often seen--a serpent! It's a low wind instrument that is an ancestor of the modern tuba, made of wood and often wrapped in leather. There were actually two of these in our ensemble. This one has a special accessory attached for a beer glass... 

St Machar's Cathedral on a rainy night

Other Christmas carol singing sessions during December were equally wonderful. The Carol Service at the ancient St Machar's Cathedral in Old Aberdeen was another awe-inspiring and joyful evening. (See video clip below.) It was, of course, raining as we walked through Old Aberdeen to St. Machar's, and the ancient church looked quite ghostly, but inviting, rising up out of the mist. On our way back, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the colorfully-lit Christmas tree in front of King's Chapel on campus.

King's Chapel, ready for Christmas!

One of the slightly more unusual things I have become part of at the Elphinstone Institute is the Scottish-Polish singing group. They meet most Thursday evenings in the Buchan Library at the Institute, and share Polish and Scottish songs. I can't say that I speak any Polish at all, but I can sing a couple of Polish songs and make appropriate sounds that, in a group, might pass for Polish words. The Scots lyrics aren't quite such new material!  In November, the Polish members of our group organized a ceilidh dance at a venue in Aberdeen. We spent the evening learning some Polish traditional dances, interleaved with some classic Scottish ceilidh dances. There was a lot of excellent homemade Polish food for everyone, too. 

Ceilidh dances are opportunities for socializing and for general hilarity as everyone tries to figure which direction they are supposed to be heading in.

The band--Danse McCabre Ceilidh Band--was great! Lots of energy, fun tunes, and a patient caller with a good sense of humor.  

Flute, fiddle, keyboard, caller...all add up to great music and good fun for all.

Anne Taylor, who plays keyboard in the Danse McCabre Ceilidh Band, lives on a beautiful farm outside of Aberdeen. (Anne also got me to join the Aberdeen Strathspey and Reel Society, which is great fun!) I spent a lovely weekend at the farm, which goes by the delightful name of North Tillydaff. The scenery is amazing, and it's sufficiently away from lights and towns that it is quite normal to see the Milky Way at night. I am still hoping to see northern lights (the Merry Dancers!) while I am here, but on this trip I saw more earth-based beauties. 

The current Midmar Kirk is a 18th-century church built on the site of much older ones. It's interesting in that the graveyard is in the midst of a Bronze Age stone circle and recumbent stone--a beautiful blending of pagan and Christian beliefs and history.

A large single standing stone next to Midmar Kirkyard. It doesn't seem to be part of the stone circle, but stands apart from it at a little distance from the church.

You can read much more about it here: https://canmore.org.uk/site/18001/midmar-kirk

Of course, it wouldn't be Scotland without gorse, that ubiquitous, tough bush that seems to bloom no matter what time of year I happen to see it. It has some impressive thorny defenses, but the cheery yellow flowers offset its prickly nature.


Unfortunately, these piebald-marked Jacob's Sheep (below) probably do not eat gorse. Goats do, I am told.

A view of North Tillydaff, looking out towards 

the Cairngorm Mountains in Aberdeenshire.

Sunset over the hills near Crathes Castle, near Banchory, Aberdeenshire. 

Below is the castle just as the sun was setting at 3:30 pm. 

Portrait of Anne holding up a massive tree on the Crathes Castle grounds. The gardens are a not-to-be-missed attraction, even in winter. Walking through the grounds, you encounter a wide assortment of specimen trees, many several hundred years old.

The tree below is apparently what is keeping the steep slope around it intact; the roots look like they are growing out of the grey granite boulders.

Granite, I'm discovering, comes in many colors. Crathes Castle and several others nearby are what I privately call pink castles (like Craigievar and Midmar Castles)--the granite is almost a peach color. Aberdeen is the Granite City, mostly the grey sort, but I'm becoming aware of how varied the granite blocks and cobblestones can be. Textures, cracks, stripes, shades of grey, pink, tan, white...I'm gradually realizing it's not just plain old grey.

Enough for this chapter of the adventure, I think! You've scrolled down and down and down and stayed with me--next time, trips to Edinburgh and also to Burghead (for the Burning of the Clavie on 11 January--one of many fire festivals at the beginning of the new year).

Two of the Elphinstone Institute MLitt students using an old traditional method--flaming torches--to light their way on a muddy path at night

Thanks for reading and supporting me! More soon...please let me know if you have 

any trouble with the video bits. I'm still learning this!