LOOKING NORTHWARD I

It's all beginning to settle down at Camp Bloggiana (or Cockrobin Hall, as she likes to call it). I,Piccalilli have declared a moratorium on gasping, grovelling and quaking while Bloggiana seems so distracted by something I later realise is a newly branded tattoo ("Remember Culloden") which is etched across the back of her right hand (dirk-bearing) in a kind of purple that could just be reminiscent of thistles that she quickly drops dropping the f-word and invites me in. Left hand on right, the Bloggic one turns her back on me, stubs her toe on a half-eaten stone which the brown dog has deposited directly on the front door-drinks cupboard trajectory and howls. The howl is guttural. It sounds like the female vocal equivalent of the piebroch and I am almost tempted to record it when Pussy Riot UK Branch swings ahead of me and passes her mother a foaming pint of the Real Mackay. Bloggiana has plopped herself, macplop, into the chair by the fire which she affectionately calls her poste restante. I, Piccalilli seize my chance.

It is now dark outside and in the tiny house she has come to occupy, a nightlight blazes. In the kitchen, an array of unopened pre-Christmas nibbles that seem largely to be haggis flavoured. In the downstairs loo, a roll of dark green and blue checked paper that deposits a curious tartanoid look on the buttock when used firmly. Not a picture frame, not a soft furnishing accessory, not a tea towel is knowingly underbranded, Bonnie Prince Charlie beaming his cheeks out from every biscuit tin.

"Come on. Out with it old bean.What's with the Scots theme?"

Devotees of the Bloggic one may recall that this woman, sitting on her poste restante, shrouded in northern light, is a Woman of Passions. Lavender-coloured comfortwear, the colour purple (in all possible permutations), in-car tree-shaped devices that smell of vanilla custard, vanilla, custard, people who address their dogs and their children in the patronising voice of the congenitally imbecile (you love snacky-wacks, don't you, my doggy-wog), vets, double-speak (particularly of the 3-word corporate nature, Eat, Dream, Sleep/Enjoy, Visit, Discover/Discover, Eat, Drink) - all these, the B-woman Passionately detests. The other thing she has been particularly vocal about over the years is her passionate ambivalence towards her mother-country. For yes, Bloggiana is in fact macBloggic, a daughter of the highland hills. And yes, over the years, she has been rather keen to hide the fact.

"Scots?" I prod.

To give her her due, my old friend, at this point, prevaricates. Pint of Real Mackay in left hand, pint of Scotch in right (dirk-bearing), tartan trews straining over her still slender embonpoint, Bloggiana makes a kind of harrumph noise. It sounds like someone has just put a hairdrier up her poste restante and the air is finally bursting forth through her flaring nostrils. I decipher a word or two. They sail out over the bright-lit atmos of Cockrobin Hall and flutter down before me, timid tiny birds buffeted on the winds of burp.

"Clan history," she 'fesses. "Am putting together a history of Clan MacBlog."

"Go on," I say, intrigued. For I, Piccalilli am all ears.