Josh is a young Jamaican-Canadian and this blog is about his music & travel adventures and anything that takes his interest. He sings bass, and studies organ, piano, violin & viola.
(This blog was last updated in April 2019, and will no longer updated in the future.)
Last year we celebrated Hogmanay at Mackenzie House. (What can I say? We love it there!)
Gin Lane was there and either last year or this year will be their 20th time performing for Mackenzie House's Hogmanay!
Since I've blogged about Hogmanay before (in 2014 and 2013), this blog post will be mostly pictures.
Here are some pictures from the Print Shop.
Pictures from the main house.
The toys that they showed were some of the gifts that kids might have gotten in the Victorian period.
Pictures from downstairs.
It seems like Gin Lane gets better and better every year!
And we especially love the food!
Thank you to Bruce and Liz and all of the staff and volunteers at Mackenzie House and to Gin Lane for such a wonderful time!
Today we went to Mackenzie House for their Robbie Burns Celebrations.
There were lots of things going on!
We printed out the Selkirk Grace.
Bruce recited the Grace with a Scottish accent.
Here's a close up:
Gillian played the harp and she read poetry for us. Her harp is different from an orchestral harp. It doesn't have any pedals.
We got to look around the house.
The dining table was set up differently from the other times we've been here.
We really liked this container.
We decided to take a picture of the relief of Mackenzie from the upstairs window.
We listened to Jeremy playing the chanter.
And we found out all about haggis.
They piped in the haggis.
Paul Federico addressed the haggis. He recited the Robbie Burns Poem, "Address to a Haggis" and he explained the meaning of it too.
I got to help out in the part of the poem where he says:
But mark the Rustic, haggis fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Which means 'Look at this person who eats haggis. The earth shakes when he walks. Put in his fist a sword and he'll make it whistle; And legs and arms and heads he'll cut off like heads of thistles.'
Of course we got to eat haggis!
After we ate, Gillian was going to do a couple Highland Dances for us.
She let me join in when she did the Highland Fling! It's the first time I've ever danced with someone playing the bagpipes. (I'm used to dancing to a recording.)
This was my favourite part of the whole afternoon!
Here are links to the videos of the dancing: Highland Fling
