Don and I just came back from a boot sale. For you silly North Americans, this is NOT a)the sale of boots, or b)the sale of articles from the boot of a car. It's like a rummage sale where you bring items to sell in a community hall. The fact that you convey them in the boot of your car is probably where the term originated. Anyway, Don bought two golf gloves and I bought some fudge. Now we both need to golf, but for different reasons.
Speaking of golf, we went out yesterday. It rained on and off for the last nine holes, which was no fun at all. My putting-from-the-bunker move failed me, so I guess I'll just have to NOT hit the ball in a bunker anymore.
Since I haven't taken any new photos recently, here's a poop shot from Durness:
Some Embo Facts you may already know:
ReplyDeleteEmbo (Scottish Gaelic: Earabol) is a village in the Highland Council Area in Scotland and the former/postal county of Sutherland, about 2 miles NNE of Dornoch.
On 16 July 1988, Embo declared itself independent from the rest of the United Kingdom for one day. This was done to raise funds to convert the unused primary school in the village into a community centre.
Pier and Embo's harbour
The declaration of independence was legal & approved by HM Queen Elizabeth II & the Prime Minister at the time (Margaret Thatcher)[citation needed]. The village issued its own currency, called the Cuddie. The rate of exchange was 2 cuddies to the pound.
Cuddies were accepted in the local public house - Grannies Heilan' Hame, in exchange for a measure of Clynelish Malt Whisky.
The owners of the distillery, in nearby Brora, sponsored the bid for independence by issuing a commemorative label on 50 cases of Clynelish Malt Whisky - "The Spirit of Free Embo"
Bronze Age remains were excavated to the south of the village in 1956, other burials having previously been discovered in the area.
Nancy Dorian's research of the local East Sutherland Gaelic dialect showed that in 1964, over 100 of the village's total population of fewer than 300 still actively spoke Gaelic, and that many more had a "smattering" or were perfect passive bilinguals. This percentage even briefly increased during the 1970s with "returners" to the village. Until the end of the 1970s at least, Embo was a bilingual Gaelic and English speaking community. Brora and Golspie had much smaller percentages of Gaelic speakers at that time.
As with the entire region of East Sutherland, the end of the 19th century and the collapse of the fishing industry coincided with the decline of Gaelic as the majority language of the people
Oh oh, I'd better get my facts right in future. I didn't know any of that stuff. Thanks for looking that up. I'll tell Jessie. I think I was wrong about the Battle of Embo. I mixed up the Viking story with one about some dude killing another dude with a horse's leg. (Bad grammer alert: the dude didn't have a horse's leg.) Don already told me a boot sale was indeed a sale from the boot of a car. Oh well, poetic licence and all that rot. I was on Embo Pier and at Grannie's yesterday. I think you and Marty should make a trip up here one day!
ReplyDeleteBad spelling alert; grammar, not grammer. Man, I've really got to get a grip!
ReplyDelete