A Scottish Storyteller

Here I go again... getting carried away. This was supposed to be a blog for stories I'd found or had written. Not for my little distractions!

But oooh I'm just so excited! Just to explain - I'm offshore at the moment...
We were just coming up for tea and I was looking for an excuse not to go all the way up the stairs in one go - these ones are STEEP! So we stopped half way and I was asking "What's that rig? Is that a drilling rig? What do you think that is?" and was pointing to the horizon and all the installations you can see on a clear night when it's as dark as it is outside right now!

Then i spotted some faint green streaks. "And what on earth is THAT all about? What's going on there?"
My workmate goes "That... Would be the Northern Lights"

So that was enough to get me bounding up the rest of the stairs so I could get a better look (without some big pipe obscuring my view).

They weren't the most impressive Northern Lights in the world, they were just green and waving about a bit... But bloody hell I was still impressed. "They call them the heavenly dancers..." - they weren't dancing so much as shifting about in their seatsuncomfortably... deciding if they wanted to get up and ask some lass if she fancied a wee dance... but I've finally seen them ! :)

The best bit was when I scared some guy in a boiler suit by all of a sudden bouncing up and down excitedly clapping my hands screaming "I've finally seen them!" I hope the medic doesn't come to me for a mental health check :P

This post is about my name and a wee gypsie wifie and how fate influenced my parents not to give me the gruff scottish names that would have got me beaten up at school.

Now in order to do this I thought I'd have to give up my precious anonymity and give you my name! Well some of you know me anyway... but for this post I will be going by the name of "Carol." There we are :)

Anyway. This one day, my mum was in hospital while she was pregnant with me and my dad was at home doing whatever it is that dad's do while they're at home. (Usually sitting in some big comfy chair pretending they're watching some western on telly whilst in actual fact they're fast asleep with their mouths open catching flies...)

And the doorbell rings and it's this auld gypsie wifie come round the doors looking to tell people's fortunes for a bit of money. This was when where we lived was on the outskirts of town and not far into the city like it is now. Dad, having been disturbed by someone chapping at the door trying to sell him something wasn't too happy and told her that no thanks, he'd not be wanting to have his palm read that particular day thankyouverymuch. So the peer auld wifie asks if she can use his lavvie (toilet to those of you unaquaint with our tongue). And usually my dad would have told anyone asking this to just bugger aff, but he says "Aye go on up" and off she goes.

So when she comes back my dad has made her a cup of tea and she's awfy thankful so she offers to read his palm anyway. Grudgingly my dad puts his hand out for examination and is told this:

"Aye. There's a babby aboot tae be born intae the family, and if it's given the name wi the letter "l" in it, the bairn will be musically gifted."

So! My mum comes home from the hospital and happily, "Morag" goes oot the windae, "Agnes" is nae longer an option... and I, quite relievedly, am called "Carol."

Oh, and I have this cousin about the same age as me, Elizabeth, who was in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

tha end.