Category: scotland

  • My Scotland

    My Scotland

    The Scots Magazine has a photo feature each issue written by a famous Scot about their favourite places in the country. They can be locations with personal memories attached to them or just spots they enjoy visiting. It got me thinking about which places I would choose, so this week’s blog is my ‘My Scotland’.…

  • Read All About It!

    Read All About It!

    My book will be published one month today, and I can’t believe I’m writing this but there are two double page spreads about it in the latest issue of The Scots Magazine! At the end of last year I was interviewed by journalist and outdoor enthusiast Nick Drainey. Although our main topic was my book,…

  • Aurora Blushing Bright

    Aurora Blushing Bright

    I couldn’t be less of a night owl. Unless something exceptional is happening, I’m tucked up by 11pm and asleep minutes later. This means that I routinely miss the northern lights, which appear in the sky above my village several times each winter and early spring, and I wake up the following morning kicking myself…

  • Happy Accidents

    Happy Accidents

    My plan had been to photograph boxing hares. According to the (notoriously unreliable) forecast, it was going to be a cloudless sunrise, so you can imagine how nettled I was to find myself in a mild blizzard at 5:30am, barely able to see 100 yards past my nose. And of course, that’s when four hares…

  • Book Teaser

    Book Teaser

    My Slow Travel Guide to North East Scotland will be published exactly two months today! To celebrate what I’m considering to be the start of The Final Countdown (cue Europe), here’s an exclusive sample from the book about the town of Banchory, 18 miles west of Aberdeen. Banchory is the last major town before you…

  • My Top 5 North East Beaches

    My Top 5 North East Beaches

    Extending from Moray’s western border near Nairn, along the Moray Firth and all the way around the right-angled wedge of Aberdeenshire, the North East coast of Scotland covers over 200 miles of coastline. Read on for my top five beaches along this stretch, from west to east, where you can spend the day foraging for…

  • Celebrating Scotland

    Celebrating Scotland

    Yesterday I attended a conference in Kingussie, down in the Cairngorms National Park, about Scottish community tourism. It was hosted by SCOTO, a collaborative group of community tourism enterprises from all over Scotland. One of my favourite speakers was Calum Maclean – a presenter, writer and Gaelic language activist who’s probably best known for his…

  • Three Years

    Three Years

    I moved to Scotland three years ago today. It’s not that long really, but both my world and the actual world have changed a huge amount in that time. Nonetheless, my local patch has stayed exactly the same.   If you’ve been following my updates for a while, you’ll know that I grew up in…

  • Lochans and Carved Faces

    Lochans and Carved Faces

    Monday was the perfect combination of winter chill and dazzling sunshine, so I decided to take my mum and the dog to two of my favourite wild spots down in the Cairngorms. Looking like a blue pawprint when seen on a map, the Uath (pronounced ‘wah’) Lochans are four small pools bordered by pines. Their…

  • Nature Spots in Aberdeen

    Nature Spots in Aberdeen

    Aberdeen is often unfairly shrugged off as ‘The Granite City’, but as with many urban places, there’s lots for nature enthusiasts to explore here.