Burns Balls

Shattered. Defeated. Flattened. That goes some way to describing me after the whirlwind of two Burns Nights. I'm cook, musician, actor, choreographer and poetry reciter. Table mover, stage constructor, driver, welcome host, translator (try doing 18th century Scots in Czech), sound engineer, dish washer and floor sweeper. Two days in a row, with a month's preparation beforehand to boot. I wouldn't care if I didn't see another haggis ever. Liberec one day, Prague the next. Catering in all for about 450 hungry Czechs, rich and poor, Scotophiles and philistines. But we did it, the speakers were eloquent, the dancers did us proud, the piper huffed and puffed, the whisky tasting corner was under constant fire, the bar staff pulled vast quantities of beer and the band played with particular panache, which privately pleased. That's it for another year, apart from a wee Burns do at the BIS (British International School) in Prague in a couple of weeks for a selection of diplomatic and executive parents. Fair fa' your honest sonsie face!