turnip head with podcast HNT

While growing up I didn't often see the humorous side of my father, mainly because of the hostilities between us. But towards the end of his life we called a ceasefire, and I visited him at his wee island cottage.

In the evenings he went out to the pub, while I would stay at his place until he returned after closing time. On Halloween, he disappeared to the pub as usual. Late that night, I was sitting watching TV when the electricity suddenly went off, everything went dark, the door opened slowly, and a turnip lantern appeared in the doorway, going "woooo" and swaying unsteadily in mid-air.

In some countries I believe it would have been a hollowed-out pumpkin, but in Scotland the tradition is to use a turnip instead. Cheaper too. You put a candle inside, and the light shines out through the eyes and mouth.

I enjoyed my father's little joke, and next day I insisted we take a photo. You can used to be able to click on the pic to zoom out and see the family resemblance.





Anyway, recently I attended a course in on-line teaching methods, and one thing we had to do was set up a podcast. I used an ancient tape recording of my old man, telling a wee 2-minute story from his life.

I admire the way he was able to get organised enough to speak it onto a tape, but for various reasons including emotional baggage, I have never actually listened to it all the way through. I can't be objective about it, but maybe you can.



Click here to get your own player.

If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.