An Alternative Christmas
An Alternative Christmas
The Ceilidh Place is a hotel, a coffee shop, a great independent bookshop, a restaurant and venue for the arts in the centre of Ullapool. It's been owned and run by my landlord's family since 1970.
It grew out of Broomview Cottage and was started by the late well known actor Robert Urquhart, who was born there in 1921.
He started with a small café in the boat shed with the idea that it would become a place for eating, meeting, talking and singing. A place to be. A place where not only postcards but life histories would be written.
A sign outside invited musicians to sing or play for their supper. If they were good, their supper could take some time. Few were served quickly!
There were arguments with planners, builders and bank managers as the café expanded. Local staff were assisted by others from across the globe who miraculously found their way to Ullapool. There were customers who became staff and staff who became customers.
And so The Ceilidh Place grew. It grew to include the house next door with rooms to let and a bookshop. It grew away from a summer place and into the place that was always open.
And it hosts music and arts events throughout the year including an alternative Christmas.
There is no big glittery Christmas tree and no obvious tired and tacky Christmas decorations. Jean Urquhart, widow of Robert, doesn't like all the commercialisation or consumerism attached to the festival. Instead she offers a Palestinian buffet open to all, that runs each Christmas day from 12 - 4pm.
I went and so did over a hundred others. The food was wonderful and plentiful.
There is no set menu price.
There is no price at all. There is a table instead where you are invited to pay only what you think the food was worth.
The money collected goes to small distinct charities close to the heart of Jean Urquhart. She has a wide variety of interests and connections as until very recently she was a Member of the Scottish Parliament.
This year half the donations were to go to Gino's Cantina, an organisation set up to feed and clothe underprivileged Roma children in Transylvania.
The remainder goes to to small charity called The Amos Trust. Its organisation is set up to work with Human rights in Palestine.
Not only did I eat excellent middle eastern food but I met fascinating people such as a doctor who divided his working life between the Shetlands and The Soloman Islands where he had problems with the local custom man - not HMRC but the local witch doctors! I met Joan who is the marvellous woman who has organised the Ullapool Book Festival for years and who turned down the likes of Alexander McCall Smith on the grounds that she was running a Literary festival and told me that her writers from Nova Scotia all speak Gaelic. I spent a couple of hours listening to a retired mechanical engineering professor who flies his own plane and is obsessed with finding out the answers to the Great Mull Air Mystery where his hero Peter Gibb disappeared on a solo flight over Mull to be found five months later nowhere near his aircraft. Was it murder? My new friend believes emphatically that it was. Look it up on the internet - there's pages of it.
Finally I was introduced to a secret delicious Shetland gin and I am now trying to bribe locals to reveal the source so I can bring some home for gin fancying friends and relations.
What a great end to Christmas Day.
And it snowed and its still snowing
Boxing day was spent more prosaically catching up with my Personal Signpost reports for my numerology clients, starting the research for next terms project and chatting to my family in Sussex.
Now I am really looking forward to a Scottish New Year
Happy New Year folks where ever you are.
The Ceilidh Place is a hotel, a coffee shop, a great independent bookshop, a restaurant and venue for the arts in the centre of Ullapool. It's been owned and run by my landlord's family since 1970.
It grew out of Broomview Cottage and was started by the late well known actor Robert Urquhart, who was born there in 1921.
He started with a small café in the boat shed with the idea that it would become a place for eating, meeting, talking and singing. A place to be. A place where not only postcards but life histories would be written.
A sign outside invited musicians to sing or play for their supper. If they were good, their supper could take some time. Few were served quickly!
There were arguments with planners, builders and bank managers as the café expanded. Local staff were assisted by others from across the globe who miraculously found their way to Ullapool. There were customers who became staff and staff who became customers.
And so The Ceilidh Place grew. It grew to include the house next door with rooms to let and a bookshop. It grew away from a summer place and into the place that was always open.
And it hosts music and arts events throughout the year including an alternative Christmas.
There is no big glittery Christmas tree and no obvious tired and tacky Christmas decorations. Jean Urquhart, widow of Robert, doesn't like all the commercialisation or consumerism attached to the festival. Instead she offers a Palestinian buffet open to all, that runs each Christmas day from 12 - 4pm.
I went and so did over a hundred others. The food was wonderful and plentiful.
There is no set menu price.
There is no price at all. There is a table instead where you are invited to pay only what you think the food was worth.
The money collected goes to small distinct charities close to the heart of Jean Urquhart. She has a wide variety of interests and connections as until very recently she was a Member of the Scottish Parliament.
This year half the donations were to go to Gino's Cantina, an organisation set up to feed and clothe underprivileged Roma children in Transylvania.
The remainder goes to to small charity called The Amos Trust. Its organisation is set up to work with Human rights in Palestine.
Not only did I eat excellent middle eastern food but I met fascinating people such as a doctor who divided his working life between the Shetlands and The Soloman Islands where he had problems with the local custom man - not HMRC but the local witch doctors! I met Joan who is the marvellous woman who has organised the Ullapool Book Festival for years and who turned down the likes of Alexander McCall Smith on the grounds that she was running a Literary festival and told me that her writers from Nova Scotia all speak Gaelic. I spent a couple of hours listening to a retired mechanical engineering professor who flies his own plane and is obsessed with finding out the answers to the Great Mull Air Mystery where his hero Peter Gibb disappeared on a solo flight over Mull to be found five months later nowhere near his aircraft. Was it murder? My new friend believes emphatically that it was. Look it up on the internet - there's pages of it.
Finally I was introduced to a secret delicious Shetland gin and I am now trying to bribe locals to reveal the source so I can bring some home for gin fancying friends and relations.
What a great end to Christmas Day.
And it snowed and its still snowing
Boxing day was spent more prosaically catching up with my Personal Signpost reports for my numerology clients, starting the research for next terms project and chatting to my family in Sussex.
Now I am really looking forward to a Scottish New Year
Happy New Year folks where ever you are.
Scottish Hogmanay is wonderful! Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteGrace Louise