A Party

Although we had a very fine party at Oran Mor in Glasgow following my dad's death in January 2016, the folk who'd known him in Morvern were still missing a chance to share the many weird and wonderful tales of his japes. I'd thought about a party in summer 2016 but I was A) in France and B) too damn tired to organise it ... I did get as far as designing the invites

The following March was also a possible date since it was his birthday but getting folk out to Drumbuidhe in daylight hours was tricky and some key folk (Dad's brother and our good friend H) who could have helped with transporting people, were both a bit poorly. Now that we're over two years since dad died it was starting to look as if the Morvern Remembering might never happen - so I resolved to kill two birds with one party and combine my birthday and a memorial for dad with one jolly get-together at Drimnin Hall.

I ordered a stack of wine from the Wine Society, food from the Whitehouse and some two-metre photocopied banners from the copyshop next to my Edinburgh flat. I think the key ingredient for the party was the sparkling wine (folk were strangely resistant to the remains of dad's dirt-cheap red wine collection) but I'm sure the food and banners helped.

I put together a slideshow of images of dad and me: principally from Morvern but with bits from Glasgow, North Carolina, Japan and Oman. As I said to folk in my introduction, I've moved house 29 times in my 51 years but the one constant has been Morvern - I can truly say it's my home.

The party was judged a fine success thanks to:

* Sumarroca Cava
* Treacle Scones
* The Drowning of the Landrover


I have never had any damn success with making scones (so many failures that I've begun to doubt my womanhood) so I include the Glasgow Cookery Books recipe for reference only. Taken from the 1960s edition:

Treacle Scones

* 1lb flour
* 2oz lard or butter
* 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
* 1 tsp ground cinammon
* 1 tsp mixed spice
* salt
* 1 tblsp treacle
* buttermilk to mix (add 1/2 tsp cream of tartar if using sweet milk)

- mix dry ingredients and treacle
- add buttermilk 'til you have a stiff dough
- divide into four, roll out and cut into four
- brush with a beaten egg and bake in a hot oven for 12 to 15 minutes

The Drowning of the Landrover featured in both the banners and the slideshow and is now firmly entrenched in Morvern's oral history: One summer's day  in 1978 we were due to head out for a picnic at Ben Hiant (with the Sandground family I think). We were taking all the food for the picnic and, since it was low tide, we had to carry it all out to the boat at the end of the point. My dad decided it would be easier to drive the landrover out over the beach. My mum said this would be a bad idea since there was a clay deposit on the beach just under the sand. My dad decided to drive out nonetheless; the landrover got stuck; much panic and shouting ensued; the tide came in over the landrover; JohnNeil came with a tractor the next day to haul the drowned vehicle out; we spent the rest of the summer taking it to bits and cleaning every piece. Despite gallons of Jizer lavished on it, the landrover was never the same again.