Scotiana

‘Books!’ said Tuppence.
 She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered explosion.
 ‘What did you say?’ said Tommy.  
Tuppence looked across the room at him.
‘I said “books”,’ she said.
 ‘I see what you mean,’ said Thomas Beresford.
In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of them various books had been extracted. [...]

Herman Melville came North to Canada on his honeymoon trip, when he was twenty-nine years old. In Montreal, he met Captain Coffin, about to leave on a whaling expedition up the norh Coast to Labrador. Maybe that was when the idea of the White Whale started germinating.
 
 

A few months back, at Stromness, a little port [...]

Mairiuna, as a continuity to your post on Greenknowe Tower, let’s put together a video, mixing the recording that Jean-Claude did of the sound produced when opening the iron gate (the yett) and the pictures we took while investigating this beautiful ruined tower in Berwickshire. 

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Although local folk tales, as you mentioned, said this place is the most haunted [...]

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While touring Scotland’s beautiful Aberdeenshire region, we heard that the Aboyne Highland Games Annual event was taking place, so Mairiuna, Jean-Claude and myself, traveled to nearby Aboyne city to experience our first Scottish Highland Games!

The abolition of the powers of the chiefs which followed the defeat of Culloden and the accompanying banning of all things Highland [...]

At the end of the nineteenth century, Art Nouveau transformed towns and countryside around the world.  Even though its style had gained popularity from just the last ten years or so, Art Nouveau permeated many arts & crafts: jewellery, book design, glasswork, textiles, wrought iron, and architecture, to name just a few, with its high [...]