Last night marked my second go at addressing the haggis at a local Burns Supper. I’d been called upon by Crazy Uncle John a few weeks back to perform the duty again, after he’d been asked to recite a couple of poems at the Colgrain Bowling Club.
The 12th of February is a little bit late for a Burns Supper, but it did give me few weeks to brush up. I was actually surprised that it only took me an hour or so of going through the poem in my head before I could do it from memory again. Considering it had been a year since I really thought about it I can only marvel at the capacity of the human brain for deep learning through repetition!
Even so, I printed the words out and kept them under my monitor on my desk at work, just to make sure I wasn’t being cavalier in my approach. I did, after all, miss a line out when I addressed the haggis at the Rosslea Hall Hotel last year, so I was mindful that I couldn’t practice enough.