Words.....

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Well, we are here. Nine hours, three hundred and five miles, two bacon baps (courtesy of a quick detour to visit Mrs W (the husband's gorgeous sister) and her family), two traffic jams, a contretemps with a large logging vehicle on an S-bend, and several nanna naps (me, not the husband).

Nine hours is a long time to be cooped up in the car with your other half, and after several conversations relating to how terrible every other driver on the M6 is, I came up with the suggesting of learning a few useful Scottish phrases to help us blend in with the locals.  It started well, with 'braw' (great), 'dinna fash yersel' (don't trouble yourself) and 'peely-wally' (a personal favourite and it means that someone is looking pale, or a bit peaky as my mum used to say.

And then it all went downhill.  It would appear that the Scottish language has many phrases which all allude to the same thing...

'Yer oot yer face'... you're drunk

'Oot yer tree'... you're drunk

'Stoatin' aboot'... you're drunk

And if you can't cope with a string of words, 'blootered', 'bleezin', 'pie-eyed' and 'mortal' will do.

As if that wasn't enough for the husband to take in, he was rather rather interested (too interested, if you ask me) as to the meanings of 'haud yer wheesht' and 'yer bum's got the windae'.  Basically, these two phrases mean 'shut up, you're talking rubbish'. 

So we have succeeded in not using the 'p' word on our first day, which in itself is something to be proud of.  However, if the husband continues with his practicing of his two 'really useful' phrases, that might change.

He might get a gentle kick in his 'wee bawbag'. (Look it up!)

Bamburgh Castle and a trip to Jedburgh tomorrow.  Jedburgh contains the remains of many ne'er-do-wells from my dad's family - I just hope that they haven't any outstanding accounts at the local hostelries.

I'd like to get pie-eyed in peace...



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