St Andrew's day celebrations

Last night I took my family to a celebration of our patron saint's day at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. What a fantastic evening. Alex Salmond's inspiring welcome address set the scene for a series of performances representing the diversity that is Scotland in 2007. We had music, readings and poetry from a variety of the cultures in today's Scotland. They included:

• Chinese
  
• Jewish
• Asian
• Polish and
• Ghanaian
  

The highlight of the evening for me was the rendition of He' mo Leannan (a beautiful gaelic love song) sung by the Tollcross Primary Gaelic choir. Their Gaelic was first class - evidence of the fantastic progress made in recent years in the teaching of Gaelic in our capital city.

By the end of the evening we all left with a deeper understanding and appreciation of Scotland's influence on the world through the centuries and, how other cultures have contributed to making us the richly talented and diversified country Scotland is today. On a personal note, I left feeling proud to be Scottish and part of a country that continues to go from strength to strength.