Getting there is half the fun, they say. Especially if you can take a break halfway, for coffee and an overdue brunch. Java U is the perfect spot for such a break, conveniently located just outside Paddington station.
We’ll be leaving soon for another trip to the UK. This time however, we’ll be going to a country we haven’t been to yet: Wales. More specifically, we’ll be discovering Cardiff.
Places to visit, eat and drink are selected, all necessary or useful apps are at the ready on their dedicated homescreen…
Of course, it’s purely coincidental that we’re going now, just before the Doctor Who Experience will be closing down… 😉
My barber — Bayer & Bayer — celebrates Saint Patrick’s Day as well: come in a kilt, and get a free haircut, beer and a whiskey. If that isn’t an offer I can’t refuse, I don’t know what is!
Saint Patrick’s Day, the only day each year I wear my saffron kilt. Although sometimes I get the question wether I’m Irish even if I’m wearing a kilt in a — to me clearly — Scottish tartan, most people associate any kilt with Scotland, and rightly so.
But there certainly is such a thing as an Irish kilt, and saffron kilts have been around as an expression of Irish nationality for over a hundred years!
The ancient Irish actually wore the léine, a linen tunic with voluminous sleeves and a hemline reaching the knees or higher, often dyed with saffron, which turned out quite yellow on linen. When there was a revival of Gaelic nationalism in the nineteenth century, the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association — two major nationalist organisations, both concerned with Irish identity — wanted a ‘costume’ or national form of dress. The léine was considered to be too difficult to be updated to the fashions of the day, so they adopted the garment of their Gaelic cousins in Scotland: the kilt, dyed either green or saffron. Used on wool, the saffron dye gave it a bit more of an orange-brownish colour, the one we associate today with saffron kilts.
The school uniform of St. Enda’s School for Boys (1908) included the saffron kilt.
Nowadays the saffron kilt is mainly worn by pipers of Irish regiments, often without a sporran.
Another year, another Saint Patrick’s Day, so enjoy it! 🙂
Actor Euan McGregor shot at Crieff Highland Gathering 2001 where he was Games Chieftain
Has Ewan McGregor ever been games chieftain at — or even just attended — the Lochearnhead Highland Games? After all, those are the ‘home’ games for clan Gregor! ?
