**BURNS NIGHT 2025- FULLY BOOKED JANUARY 25th!**

LIMITED AVAILABILITY! Some slots left for week 18th-26th January. Please get in touch to discuss your requirements for your Burns events in January & February

Scotland celebrates her national poet, Robert Burns and his poetry in many different ways. While Burns Night can be held with slight variations, the night usually involves eating some haggis, reading or singing some of Burns’ poetry, laughing and dancing. Besides saluting everything Scottish, putting emphasis on literature and language, the event is also about appreciating friends and family.

A Burns supper gathers around 20-40 people who arrive to the venue and step into the dinner space while Simon pipes a selection of traditional Scottish marches, reels and Strathspeys. Then the supper starts with the host giving a speech to welcome everyone. This usually means saying the Selkirk Grace. Then comes the first course.

The most important part of the supper is the introduction of the haggis. Everyone stands up while the haggis is being brought into the room accompanied by Simon playing 'A Man's A Man' For' A' That'. Someone recites 'Address to the Haggis', which of course was written by Robert Burns while cutting the haggis with a ceremonial knife called a Sghian Dubh

It is also tradition to feature more poems by Burns and to finish the Burns Night dinner with drinking some whisky. If there's enough space, people often dance around; this is called a ceilidh.

To end the night in style everyone stands in a circle, holds hand and sings another famous Burns piece, 'Auld Lang Syne'.

The Hogmanay custom of singing "Auld Lang Syne" has become common in many countries. "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem by Robert Burns, based on traditional and other earlier sources. It is now common to sing this in a circle of linked arms that are crossed over one another as the clock strikes midnight for New Year's Day, though it is only intended that participants link arms at the beginning of the final verse, before rushing in to the centre as a group. Traditionally, Simon plays 'Auld Lang Syne' at the stroke of midnight to the accompaniment to singing, fireworks and poppers!