Happy Hogmanay, Happy Hogman-eh, Happy New Year et Bonne Année 2023! The Scottish word for New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, refers to the ancient Norse festival of Yule, celebrated at the turn of the year. Today, the New Year’s eve party in Edinburgh, is one of the grandest, most spectacular, and most extravagant street festivals on earth. In Glasgow, the partying … Continue reading →
Dear Readers, Just a few words on this very festive day to wish you all a very Happy Christmas on behalf of the whole team of Scotiana and to share with you a few pictures of our place in Sarlat, Dordogne. Just have a look at the wonderful Christmas decorations illuminating the beautiful capital of Perigord, giving still more … Continue reading →
Happy day very dear friends and loyal readers, 🙂 Gosh we are in for a treat today thanks to Mairiuna who informed me about a beautiful and spectacular garden located at Portrack House near Dumfries in Scotland: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation which opened in 1998, inspired by modern-day cosmological theories. It incorporates sculptures, water features, paths, lawns, a walled … Continue reading →
When we first discovered Scotland, like many travellers, we immediately fell in love with this wonderful land. Since then we have never stopped going back there, again and again, never getting tired of its wild beauty, of the quality of its light, of its changing skies… . . There is truly something magical in the solitary rugged landscapes, in the … Continue reading →
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 →
