Chapter Seven

I'm not stuck. No, really.

I'm not really sure that there is a thing you can call stuck for me (can't speak for other people), not properly. I know what things have to happen in this chapter, and the last one is in fact already written, so I know where I need to get to and I know what's going on along the way. I just don't have a key to get into it yet.

It's like a big bundle of wool where you know perfectly well there must be two ends and you can see there's quite a bit in between them, but blowed if you can find them. What I need to do is go for some walks. Part of it slipped into place about 3.30 this morning (accompanied by the World Service), but that's not such a good method. Walking is the thing. In snow if necessary (and looking outside, it might well be).

Drink tea, save lives.

If you could put your feet up for twenty minutes, have a cup of tea and a biscuit, and save a life, wouldn't you?

I've just given blood. I'm evangelical about this. You have been warned.

My father started giving blood during the war, and he earned his silver badge in the days when you could only give twice a year. He wore it constantly on his tweed jacket, with considerable pride. When I was at primary school, my mother had a serious operation, and a few days after she came home she had a major haemorrhage and had to be rushed back to hospital, where she received, and was saved by, a blood transfusion. We used to joke that maybe my father's blood had saved my mother's life, and perhaps it had. When I was eighteen, I attended the first local donation session that came along, and have been giving, with a couple of medical gaps of my own, ever since.

My father was forcibly retired from blood donation at retirement age, just before he earned his gold badge. A few years ago, I earned my own gold badge, though unfortunately he didn't live long enough to see it. I wear mine constantly on my Barbour jacket, with pride. I've now given seventy three donations, in seven different cities. I’ve seen all kinds of advances in technology, and watched health scares come and go. I've drunk coffee and eaten TUC biscuits and met interesting nurses and fellow donors, and not a minute of it has been a waste of time. It's such a little, pleasant thing for me to do. You can see on television adverts and online the number of lives that are saved or changed by blood donation. I've no idea if I've saved a life - I hope I have, but if it has at least been of service then it has been worthwhile. If you can do it, go on, do.

www.scotblood.co.uk/‎

Autumn again! Ooh, I love it. One allotment pretty much cleared (leeks planted, though) and the other to be done, nasturtiums all over the garden, the amelanchier bright yellow, and the blackberries leaping off the brambles to be eaten. I wasn't going to make any wine this year but it's too good a year to miss and hedgerow wine will be made.  A few weeks ago I took a brisk walk locally to deliver something and saw a skein of 250 geese, two roe deer, and a fox, and filled my arms with elderberries. Who needs to live in the country? (well, me, often, but sometimes towns can come up to the mark. And how many cities can you live in and regularly see grey seals from the bus?)

Meanwhile I'm ploughing through The Tender Herb, Book Six. I'm looking out at autumnal trees and busy bluetits here but half my head is in Moghul India, trying to catch and convey the sights and smells and tastes that intrigue Murray. It wasn't all novelty for him, though: of course Indian silks and cottons were available in Britain, and the first commercially blended curry powder was sold in the U.K. about 1806! So many Scots worked in the Honourable East India Company or travelled to the subcontinent for other reasons, then came home and brought a flavour of their travels with them. The Fraser family of Moniack in Invernessshire are particularly interesting - I've kidnapped William Fraser and put him in my book (couldn't resist) though his brother James can't appear as he came to India later. He was an accomplished artist but returned to manage the family estates after compiling albums of fascinating portraits and views around Delhi and in the Himalayas. And the family estates now produce Moniack Wine, which along with Cairn o'Mohr from Errol is much appreciated in this household!

Scots Words in Fellowship with Demons

The final instalment of these for now:

Advocate: Scots law’s equivalent of a barrister

Assoilzie: (pronounced assoll-yee) to acquit

Aught: anything

Bailie: councillor

Barnage: childhood

Behouchie: behind, backside

Chopin: a Scots half-pint (about 0.85 litres in new money)

Claik: gossip

Craw-step: crow-stepped gables, gables with a stepped edge.

Cundy: a covered drain or the entrance to a drain

Doocot: dovecot

Dwamie: dreamy

Feardy: cowardly, fearful

Flotter: in a state of excitement

Forwanderit: amazed

Glour: sticky muck

Greeshach: shivery, shuddery

Gyte: mad, crazy

Haar: sea mist

Hirple: limp (verb)

Jook: glance, poke your head quickly round a corner

Ken: know (if you’ve read all these lists you’ll ken that one by now)

Laldy, to give: to put effort in, particularly in a fight or row

Lep: leap

Luckenbooth: a folding stall in the street

Meschant: coward

Midden: rubbish pit, dung heap

Pannel: in Scots law, the defendant

Pollis: police

Provost: the Lord Provost is the equivalent of a Lord Mayor

Rammy: fight, squabble, punch-up

Receipt: recipe

Recryand: villain

Reiver: border raider, particularly in the 16^th and 17^th centuries

Risp: twisted metal bar, against which a ring was rattled to alert people to answer the door – a type of doorbell, really.

Sakeless: harmless, simple

Scurryvaig: wander

Skelet: skeleton

Snippy: mean

Stavell: wander

Tron: weighing scales, weighing point for a market

Wald: yellow

Water-caddies: people who carried water in barrels from the street fountains to customers’ flats

Whaup: curlew

Whin: gorse

 

Scots words in An Abandoned Woman

This book actually started off being called 'An Unkenspeckle Woman', meaning an inconspicuous woman, but it was pointed out to me that not understanding the title was unlikely to be a selling point! Again, we have some repetition from the other books here, and some words that will be in use today or obsolete, and some words that will not be exclusively Scots.

Ain: own

Ashet: serving dish

Bejant: first year student at St. Andrew’s University (from the French, bec jaune, or yellow beak, meaning a young bird)

Carline: old woman, witch

Claik: gossip (though Buchan claik simply means Buchan speech, Buchan dialect)

Compear: to appear in any court, as accused or as witness

Corbie: crow

Couped by the heels: knocked flat

Couthless: unsophisticated

Cuddy: donkey

Doocot: dovecot

Faisible: respectable, decent

Fou’: drunk

Gallant: flirt

General Assembly: the annual meeting of representatives of the Established Church in Edinburgh, where the Moderator is elected.

Gey: very

Gowf: golf

Green garten: giving a sister the green garten = a younger sister marrying before an elder one, an embarrassing situation for the elder sister.

Grushie: healthy

Heich-headit: haughty

Heritors: body of laity, usually landowners, who see to the buildings of a parish, the church, manse and schoolhouse, and appoint the schoolmaster.

Hirple: limp

Hizzie: hussy

Ill-gashioned: mischievous or ill-disposed (a Fife expression)

Jook: duck, dodge

Ken: know

Kenspeckle: well-known, conspicuous

Kirk Session: body of laity, known as elders, who with the minister run a particular church. The Session Clerk is their head. Not unlike a vestry in an Anglican church.

Kist: chest

Lammie: lamb

Lepping-on stane: mounting block

Lug: ear

Manse: oh, everyone will know this one! It’s the minister’s house, the vicarage equivalent. It’s also the name of the house where a particular professor lived and taught at Aberdeen University, so ‘Humanity Manse’ is where Latin was taught, for example.

Mercat: market

Midden: dung heap, refuse heap

Muir: moor

Pavie: panic, chaos

Rammie: fight, particularly street fighting.

Roup: auction

Shilpit: lazy, useless, unpromising generally

Skirl: yell, scream

Steading: farm buildings usually round a yard.

Swithering: indecisive

Taigle: dally (basically entangle)

Taigle the cleek: hinder progress generally, tangle things up

Tatties: potatoes

Un-better-maist: ungentlemanly, unladylike

Uncanny: creepy, not quite right (also not careful, not clever)

Whin: gorse

Yeld: barren

Scots words in Service of the Heir

Well, the very title is a Scots legal term, also known as a Retour, the proof established that someone can inherit land or buildings from someone else. Moveable goods go differently. But here are some of the Scots words that appear - again, some are in broader use than just Scotland, some are archaic and some still used, and some are repeated from the last two lists. Now, back to typing the next book!

Auld Clootie – the Devil, the old  cloven-hooved one.

Bairn – child

Bing – a barrel or tub, or (later) any large quantity. For example, the mining spoil heaps in the Lothians are called bings

Boke - vomit

Bumbazed – confused

Clarty - dirty

Creepie stool – small, roughly made stool suitable for kitchens

Cruive – pen for animals

Divilment - mischief

Fash – bother, fash himself – take the trouble

Frae - from

Gar my flesh grue – give me the creeps

Gey - very

Gowk  - fool

Groosie – dirty, usually greasy dirt

Haar – sea mist

Handfasted – betrothed

Hizzie - hussy

Howff – low drinking establishment

Joogling – jingling, jiggling

Kirk  - church

Kisting – placing of a  corpse in a coffin (kist – chest)

Loutch – to walk carelessly, with shoulders slumped

Luckenbooth – a lockable market stall

Muckle – much, or of a person, self-aggrandising

Neuk – corner

Pluffy – full of yourself

Pross – parade, show yourself off

Queesivity - curiosity

Risp – an alternative to a door knocker, a vertical twisted iron rod attached to a wall by the door, with a ring round it to be rattled (tried to find one on the SCRAN website but it's refusing to appear!)

Speiring – asking, looking for

Steading – farm buildings

Thole – tolerate, put up with

Tron – weighings scales, also the place where goods are weighed at a market

Wadman – employment agent

Well-kent – well-known

Scots words in Knowledge of Sins Past

Some of these are duplicated from Death in a Scarlet Gown, but there we are: this maybe makes it easier!

Ashet: a large serving dish

Birl: spin round or over

Brose: usually barley broth, sometimes oatmeal in water. Athol Brose is whisky, cream and oatmeal as a pudding and can be very fine (and indeed very alcoholic)

Corbie: crow

Craik: croak

Creepie stool: a small stool made usually by amateur carpenters, suitable for kitchens http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/woodbgood/index.asp?pageid=1045

Crusie lamp: a wall-hanging oil lamp with a wick, cheaply made and used often in cottages http://www.ramshornstudio.com/early_lighting_4.htm

Dominie: schoolmaster (this time from Latin, dominus)

Feart: afraid

Gar me grue: give me the creeps

Gey: very

Girdle: griddle

Gob: mouth, or more generally face

Greet: cry, sob

Guddle: confusion, mess

Hapeth: halfpennyworth (that is, not much)

Heidyin: head one, chief

Hirple: to limp

Howff: a low drinking establishment

Ken: know

Kirk: church

Kist: chest. In the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, there’s a group of Episcopalian Church papers known temptingly as the Jolly Kist – but it’s just a chest of papers that once belonged to Bishop Jolly. Ah, well.

Lum: chimney

Midden: dungheap

Neep: turnip, swede

Nyerps, give you the: annoy you, bother you, disturb you

Precentor: in the Scottish church, one who leads the singing of the psalms

Rammy: scrap, fight

Skelp: slap, spank, cane, generally for disciplinary purposes

Unchancy: unlucky

Wean: child, infant