Bonjour Mairiuna et Jean-Claude, Iain and Margaret and loyal readers! 🙂 I’m very happy to contribute this article written from my home-based town of St- Jérôme in the province of Québec, Canada just before rusty oranges, golden yellows, and ruby reds of autumn transform the landscapes. Upon reading and learning through Mairiuna’s most recent post A Virtual Journey to the … Continue reading →
The first time I heard about St Kilda islands was during a conference on Scotland given by Serge Oliéro on 17 January 2000. It was only a few months before our first Scottish journey. Serge Oliéro is the author of Terre d’Écosse which he dedicated to me with these words “Pour Marie-Agnès Bon voyage chez les Celtes”. None of us … Continue reading →
‘Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself’.~ William Faulkner While skimming through the SCOTS Heritage Magazine tucked into the bookshelf, I was inspired to pick up a copy with a very colorful cover featuring Jamie Macnab, the 24th Chief of Clan Macnab. Not so much to inform myself about the … Continue reading →
”Kenneth White is an absolutely genial and visionary Scottish-French author, an inspired and inspiring poet, essayist, traveller and philosopher who created the concept of ‘geopoetics’* and the International Institute of Geopoetics* in 1989. I first heard about Kenneth White years ago at Bordeaux Montaigne University when I began a late and short cursus of English studies. Then I didn’t know … Continue reading →
Hi and welcome back ! While chatting with my dear friend Mairiuna about stamp collecting, a topic we love to share upon as we are both fans of those miniature work of art, she mentioned George Mackay Brown’s interest in collecting stamps. By all means! Having travelled through many of his books I was surprised that I never got hinted … Continue reading →
Twenty-six years ago (on 13 April 1996), the soul of GMB passed over the Rainbow Bridge .. he is very well remembered !     Iain & Margaret 13 April 1996… in Kirkwall Hospital, at 5.50 p.m., George Mackay Brown, left for his last journey. Did GMB actually left, I’m not sure. So deeply rooted was the poet in Stromness and Orkney … Continue reading →
Time flies! And with it another month has come and gone…and on the eve of a new month, in all time zones, it may be April’s Fool’s Day, but the need to protect our planet is no joke. April is Earth Month, and April 22nd is Earth Day but should we not celebrate our beautiful and supportive blue planet upon … Continue reading →
Dear readers, The 13th February is a date marked in red ink (bloody red) on the Scottish calendar…Â it’s a date to remember, and indeed it has been remembered again and again, the sad history being passed from generation to generation of Scottish people … they will never forget the innocent people who fell in Glencoe on that fateful day … Continue reading →
Dear readers, Here we are again, at the beginning of a new year, hoping for the best in the coming months. Given the sanitary situation we still don’t know when we will be allowed to return to Scotland. En attendant des jours meilleurs I try to compensate my frustrations by browsing our pictures of Scotland, reading or re-reading books about … Continue reading →
Dear Friends and Readers, ⌛ Another year is gone…May the New Year 2022 bless you with health, peace, wealth and happiness! Pretty much in all the largest cities of the world as in Scotland – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stirling and Inverness – all-night celebrations are traditionally held to welcome the New Year. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest … Continue reading →
How am I to sing your praise, Happy chimney-corner days, Sitting safe in nursery nooks, Reading picture story-books? (Robert Louis Stevenson – From A Child’s Garden of Verses) I could not have found more charming lines to introduce my new selection of books for Christmas than the above verses written by Robert Louis Stevenson in his lovely poem “Picture Books … Continue reading →
Happy Spooky Halloween Dear Friends! I know its an old-fashioned holiday that actually dates back many centuries, but nice to recall that Halloween actually originates from Scotland. Back then it was called Samhain, a Gaelic and Pagan commemoration of the end of the harvest season. The celebration is mentioned in Celtic literature over two thousand years ago. During Samhain, the … Continue reading →
Born on 17 October 1921, in Stromness, Orkney, George Mackay Brown, “The Bard of Orkney” would be a hundred years old today. We would like to join his many fans all over the world to celebrate this anniversary and pay homage to the great Scottish poet. As one of the leading Scottish poets and authors of the 20th century GMB … Continue reading →
Dear readers, Autumn is back with its gorgeous colours and shorter days. A good time for fireside reading and for me to go on with my promise to Sir Walter Scott to read all his books. A promise that seems to be well on its way though I still feel like the climber at the foot of the Himalayas ;-). … Continue reading →
Bonjour Marie-Agnes, Janice et Jean-Claude ! 🙂 Hello again from Scotland ! Is there, I wonder, any more romantic story in all of our country’s modern history than the tale of ‘The Stone’ – how at Christmas 1950 Ian Hamilton (b.1925) and some young friends removed Scotland’s Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey to bring it back home? What they … Continue reading →
