Tonight is Burns Night, the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. Happy Burns Night to you all. :3

I’d never really done anything for Burns Night before, but my year at school decided to organise a Burns supper and a ceilidh for sixth year and staff, and I went because there would be haggis and I thought it might be a bit of a laugh, though I intended to steer clear of the ceilidh dancing because I am the worst dancer in the history of the universe.

The Supper was more organised and traditional than I expected. We had Mr Haldane welcoming us, a boy called Finn piped in the haggis, Amy did the Address to the Haggis, Mr Haldane said the Selkirk Grace, and then we all went and ate some rather fantastic haggis. Well, most of us did. Those who clearly aren’t Scottish enough don’t like haggis got tomato pasta.

We got Mr Park, a PE teacher who retired last year but taught at our school for over 30 years, there to recite Tam o’ Shanter. He was quite impressive: recited all 35 stanzas from memory, with plenty of drama. Everyone was hanging on his every word, and we applauded for about ten minutes afterwards.

Our head teacher read the Immortal Memory, which was 25 minutes long and actually fairly interesting.

Then we had the toast to the lassies, which was written by the guys in my year and was about how the girls disapprove of their games in the common room. A guy called Dean read it, and he started by saying how the guys refer to the girls as “fun sponges, or banter tampons”. The look on the teachers’ faces was priceless.

But then, the toast to the lads did start with Caitlin telling the lads “You think you’re a’ that, but you’re really just twats”. So classy.

After that we had Arlene playing Burns songs on the accordion, then the vote of thanks, and then we all headed into the main hall for the ceilidh.

We had a band(well, a drummer and an accordion player), who were organising all the dances. Jayne and I just watched the first one, a Canadian Barn Dance, but then we joined in. I think we did the Dashing White Sergeant twice, the Gay Gordons, an Eightsome Reel, a massive Strip The Willow with everyone kind of going at once, and a St Bernard’s Waltz. It was actually surprisingly fun, and Jayne and I are officially the best ceilidh dancers ever. Well, we didn’t fall over, that’s a good start.
The band were quite excellent. They started everything with the traditional music, but then halfway through the second Dashing White Sergeant they switched to Poker Face by Lady Gaga, which sounds surprisingly good on an accordion. Also, part of the Strip The Willow was danced to the theme music from Pirates of the Caribbean. Which was brilliant.

Overall, it was a really good night, and it was amazing to see the whole year come together and just have so much fun. Everyone was just dancing with anyone, even if they didn’t know them or they were the same gender, and there were no complaints and everyone was happy and it was just so much fun.

Still tired from the bloody dancing though.