Competition

I’m sure many of you have heard of Irvine Welsh and his novel titled Trainspotting. It is a story of a bunch of Scottish lowlifes who do drugs, steal and do many other awful things. By all means an interesting read.

However, I’m currently reading a sequel to trainspotting in preparation for writing my thesis. The plot takes place mainly in Edinburgh and as the characters are Scottish they obviously speak Scottish English.

For those of you who are not acquainted with Scottish English I’ve prepared a competition. Basicaly, I’m asking you to translate the following piece of writing into regular English. I know it’s not difficult but it somewhat undermines one’s English proficiency. Use the comments. Good luck!

The boy’s still shitein n ah’m watchin oot fir nosey cats in the street. Any cat blabs aboot this, n it’s doon tae him, eh kens that. Wi git intae the van n take the gear back tae Kate’s. The barry thing is thit thir’s a Rod Stewart CD wi aw the hits oan it. Ah poakited that right away.

From an aunt to a supermum

This weekend I became a supermum for about one hour :) While my friend – the real supermum – was practising her rollerskating skills with the pram, I was carrying her little son in a sling in front of me. Thus, I drew the attention and very positive, understanding looks of most passers-by on a Gdynia boulevard. It’s nice to feel appreciated :)

The real mum, rollerskating

Me as a supermum

Animal Farm continued

And now meet Mr Frog :). The squirrel invited him here: she’s dining on the tree above, he’s basking on my swing below :)

By the way, the squirrel sends her love to you all :)

Predator against …?

At my home it’s hazelnuts time :). There are three hazel trees around the house and we’re picking the fruit for winter. Such abundance this year!

Alas! There’s one serious problem: someone (something) else is hoarding food for winter! A squirrel has been sneaking into our garden for some time now. Not that I care much. I like to approach her sometimes and watch her sniffing and dining. However, it is something my mother-in-law can’t bear :). Anytime she sees her, she rushes into the garden, grabs hold of one of the branches and, shaking it violently, makes a lot of seemingly threatening noise :). Unfortunately, she can only win a battle, never the war: again and again the rodent leaves for her hiding with full stomach and some supplies in her mouth.

I know it’s vicious of me, but for me (and the rest of the family, for that matter) this is sheer fun. It’s enough to knock on my mum’s window and inform her: ‘The squirrel says hello’, and she’s out there again protecting our hazelnuts against this horrible horrible predator :)

What’s more to say? Just look below and judge for yourselves how scary the predator is :)

wow,

Slow reader I am. Everyone who knows me know this. But I try hard and… I’ve beaten my record of number of pages read in a day! So far it was about 100 (when I had to finish Krzyzacy for the following day, back in my primary school). Yesterday I read 170 pages, wow. All because I had a 7,5 hour long train journey from Katowice. I bought a book at the station and decided to read it in one go, during the journey. I didn’t manage it. I told you I was a lousy reader, but at least I’ve got my new record to be proud of.

Dear Mr Wolf

Nice to meet you in Britain and thanks for our spending the moment together. I suffered seriously from the jet lag when I got back to China. I could not sleep well the whole night. I was dizzy the whole day. This is why I failed te send you the photo earlier. Now things have become better. I hope everything goes well with you. Welcome to China.
Best wishes.