Jerusalema Family Style :) in Scottish Meanderings

It all started with Four posting a video of religious fraternities dancing to Jerusalema which had gone viral - initially in Ireland I believe but then all sorts of workgroups and other groups got in on the act. I loved watching it.

A while later she posted someone giving a tutorial on the steps to the dance and I wondered if I could learn it - I used to do line dancing in my former life and absolutely loved it. At the time I was lying in bed recovering from the effects of my first vaccine jab but I needed the loo so when I came back I had a tentative go and was soon prancing round my bedroom in my jammies, slightly frustrated because there was one bit I was consistently getting wrong. I knew Nikki would be able to suss it out so texted her to ask if she would help me with it when I went out to see them on Sunday. She was choked with the cold at the time so the reply I got wasn’t exactly enthusiastic!

Just at that point, my niece, Jenny, texted the whole family to say she was trying to make a 'video hug' for her big sister, Marina, who was having her 40th birthday in a couple of weeks and obviously, in COVID times, couldn't celebrate properly. A video hug is where everybody makes a wee birthday video for person in question then it's all edited together so that she gets it as one long video. So I thought oh hey why don't we all do a Jerusalema video dance for her for a laugh?!

That Sunday, enthusiasm still wasn't rife and I despaired of it happening at all and in fact it wouldn't have had it not started raining. Lilah's sixth birthday had been that week and Nikki, trying desperately to think of something exciting to organise in lieu of a party, had rented a hot tub for the week which had been a big hit. The girls wanted to go out in it again after tea when I was there but it was really cold weather and when it started raining, Nikki vetoed the whole idea. Lily had gone off into her room in a huff about something (not about the hot tub) so I went through and asked if she wanted to learn a new dance with me to try and bring her out of it. She was all excited to do it so then Nikki got wind of this and decided that ok we'd all give it a go!

By now I'd figured out the bit causing me problems but when Nikki started learning, she also got stuck at the same bit and it took a good while to get it sussed, by which time the girls had wandered off to do something else! So then we had to get them up to scratch as well and after that, we did a few practices so that by the time we came to record something, we'd been pretty much dancing for a couple of hours straight and I was absolutely knackered!

But now Nikki was all gung-ho about it and totally into it and excitedly decided we could do a bit in all the rooms of the house as well as outside, like some of the viral videos. At this point I was like OMG I can hardly pick up my feet never mind dance and to make matters worse, when we were doing it outside, I was wearing my boots so had the weight of them to pick up as well when doing the 4 'jumps/hops'.

Which is pretty evident in the video and why I’m lumbering around like a sack of potatoes running purely on fumes. My former line dancing self would be aghast.

Anyway we gave it our best shot and Nikki edited the best bits for the video hug afterwards. It's just a shame she did the final one on her phone and not on my iPad which would have got more of us in. And I can report that the birthday girl was absolutely delighted with the result - she wanted to put it on Facebook for everyone to see but one of her friends had mentioned some of the stuff they got up to as single ladies in her video hug (it was nothing I would have worried about to be honest) so wasn't keen for it to 'go public'! So she just shared it with the rest of the family on our Messenger group instead.

Here's one of our initial efforts where we realised we actually had to concentrate ......

And the finished article.

The 'Wait For It' bit in the first one is because, as you'll see, Ruari was doing his own version down at the front and I crashed into him and spectacularly fell on my backside - if Nikki had used the iPad we'd have probably got it in which would have increased the amusement factor somewhat!

So thank you Four - you started a fun ball rolling there!

And I'll be buying a new bra pretty soon I can tell you.


Our Royal Family's taken a big hit with Phil going. I have no doubt the Queen will stoically carry on as she has done all her working life but when all's said and done, she's still lost her soul mate of 73 years and that's hard to come to terms with in anybody’s book. And he filled that rôle pretty well in my opinion - can't have been easy a lot of the time.

I don't remember much about meeting them with my sister in my home town many years ago - I think the nose picking gives away the nonchalance ...... My sister looks pretty impressed though :) She's the one hanging on to 4/5 year old me with the white ribbon in my hair and the Clarks sandals.



With the restrictions lifting a bit, my friend Janice and I got together at the weekend and had a lovely walk in Aberdeenshire at Forvie Nature Reserve, a beautiful coastline path with spectacular scenery. We walked as far as this gorgeous bay and I would have loved to go down to it but I knew I had to turn back or I would have overstepped the mark in terms of energy. It was so lovely to walk somewhere further afield and also to catch up after so long though. It was also a gorgeous day for a walk.


After I left her, I drove on a bit further to Cruden Bay, a lovely old fishing village, and parked the car at the harbour/beach to sit in the (windy) sun for a bit. This is the beach I used to walk Trooper on when I worked in Boddam, an even smaller village a few miles further north. I would be there 3 days a week and he was so good - just lay on a mat in the office out of the way then at lunchtime we’d pile in the car and walk along the cliffs or along this beach. After he died, I went back there and scattered some of his ashes :)



And to finish with, I was reflecting the other day on how much I like the phrase used in Australia "How are you going?" or "How are you travelling?", to ask someone how they are - the equivalent of our "How are you doing?" over here. It makes so much more sense to me as though we're all travelling along the road of life and making that same journey together with all the pitfalls, crossroads, side roads, cliffs and everything in between which that entails.

And hopefully helping each other along the road :)