Great fun at the Highland Hospice Burns Supper at the Drumossie Hotel near Inverness on Saturday night. Donnie Munro of Sabhal Mor Ostaig and ex lead singer of Runrig was giving the Toast to the 
Lassies – part of which he sang! – I thought I was dead meat sitting there waiting to give the reply.
The schedule of a Burns Supper must be Tam o Shanter's revenge. Only a man whose wife supposedly nursed her wrath to keep it warm could leave the sole speech by a woman till midnight when drink's been taken and everyone's ready to go home! Unfortunately, I may have maligned the good people of Wick (my mother's home town) by suggesting that few of them made a previous Drumossie gig because they couldn't negotiate the Longman roundabout. Hey – in its time it was the first roundabout anyone from the Highlands encountered and always under pressure --late for a wedding, hospital appointment or whatever!
Anyway, keen to make sure teuchters still face a road-based obstacle course before entering the Highland capital, and since Longman is no longer the challenge it used to be, the city fathers have turned the Inshes roundabout into hell on wheels. In town I was shocked to see adverts for a Caged Baby party. Minutes later circling the Inshes roundabout by the new Tesco -- I was in it. Caged babies, parents, dogs, grandparents, circus performers – you name it, every section of society was spinning round that roundabout desperately trying to read the signs to exit. I spotted a Model T Ford, a few horses and some escapes from Culloden all trying to read each sign before they whipped past to make another hopeless circuit. Eventually, spotting something that appeared to say dual carriageway I made my move. Only to end up in the Tesco carpark. Someone has to break it to the roads department sign-writers at Highland Council and that someone may have to be me. Guys, an entrance lane to a supermarket divided from the exit lane by a row of trees does NOT constitute a dual carriageway as the rest of us understand the word.
Still, the craic at the Burns Supper was great – and how amazing to have a run of programmes about Burns on BBC Scotland last night. Can you imagine what it would be like if we that kind of programming all the time?
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