THE CURIOUS KILT

All About Kilts
I, for one, love the kilt and thoroughly enjoyed a visit to a kilt maker in Inverness, Scotland where I learned that over 3000 tartans are divided into three groups: clan tartans, army tartans, and city tartans. Today there are also tartans that can be worn by anyone. Often businesses design their own tartan. The advent of color TV made dress tartans very popular. Ancient tartans are very dark because of the lack and availability of dyes. All tartans are plaids, but not all plaids are tartans. A tartan has the same pattern of colors and strips, no matter from what direction it is viewed.

Originally tartan referred specifically to a mantle of cloth draped over the back and shoulder. Kilts can be traced back to 1471. Clans developed special dying and weaving techniques with colors and patterns. The craft of dying with various plants and bark was raised to an art form and was a source of pride to the clan. Tartans came into fashion during Queen Victoria’s time when Albert wore a kilt and made all things Scottish popular.

Originally the kilt was called a faelmor (sounds like filimore) and was simply a blanket of unwashed wool. Wrapped around the waist it formed a covering. With part of it tossed over the shoulder a pouch-purse could be formed in the front chest, and wrapped a different way it formed a knapsack in back for carrying articles. At night the faelmor substituted for a blanket.

A kilt uses eight yards of fabric and is specially measured and handmade. Kilts have 27-29 pleats in the back. After pleating, the fabric is cut away about four inches down from the top to allow for a facing and to reduce the bulk around the waist. The kilt just covers the knee. The straps and buckle are the last things attached before pressing. It takes 8-10 hours to make a kilt and 3-5 years of training before a kilt maker is left on her own.

There are strict rules for wearing a kilt; however, there are no rules for how women can wear a tartan.

The purse-like sporran is worn in the front of the kilt. The number and kind of tassels on the sporran identifies the regiment.

Wine Stories

A COUPLE WINE STORIES

Normally in Europe drinks are not included with your meal. One even pays for water and 95% of the time it will be bottled water. When I was biking Bordeaux, France we had the company boss biking along with us. Every evening we were served wine with our meal. The fellows were not at all shy about raising an empty bottle to be replaced. The wine flowed the whole trip. We assumed all the neat boutique hotels were saying thank you to the boss for his business. Although in a region where wine was plentiful and reasonable, some would say cheap, it was nice to be the beneficiary of their generosity.

Tug of the Cork
Late in the afternoon of the first day in Warsaw we walked a couple of blocks to a local store to buy bottled water in large containers. While there we also bought a bottle of wine.
It took both Jan and me to open that bottle of wine. It was the year before 9/11 and the changes that event brought to travel. I had packed my handy dandy Swiss army knife, but wished I had packed my good cork screw. I was afraid that I would ruin the cork.

It was a struggle, but with each of us pulling in a different direction, with Jan holding the bottle at its base and my pulling in the opposite direction on the corkscrew, we eventually popped the cork.
Jan remarked, “Hey we didn’t even get cork pieces in the bottle.”

We even had ice in the room which was a plus as I really like my wine cold.

After tasting the wine I said, “For a $2.50 bottle of wine, this isn’t bad.”

We celebrated out arrival in Poland and the start of three weeks in Eastern Europe.

Watering the Vineyard
We had dinner one evening in the Hungarian countryside at a winery.

Dinner was very good, but the wines from this award winning vintner left a lot to be desired for my palate. This was a surprise as we had drunk some very good Hungarian wines. We were seated on a large wrap-around porch at the edge of the vineyard. Fortunately I was seated at the rail which gave me easy access to the plants that I watered with each successive glass of wine that came my way.

The gal pouring the varieties of wine held a handled glass container with a 30” long spout which she covered with her finger to stop the flow of wine as she move from glass to glass.. We did note that a few more rules would apply to this process in the states. Even though I did not indulge in more than tasting the wines, it was a fun and different evening.

In the Czech Republic we visited a Mozart museum where we also had the privilege to attend a private concert. After the concert we were given a glass of champagne and had a chance to wander the lovely manicured grounds. I’m not much of a champagne drinker so after a sip or two I watered the lawn. I needed to be sober to climb the hill and touch that concrete table where Mozart sat while he composed Don Giovanni in 1787.

I have several wine and many ice stories which I’ll eventually relate to you my readers.