Tag Archives: Scotland

Norway: Bergen, Scotland, waterfalls and green roofs

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Joanna’s trip to Norway is full of memories, of Bergen and more

The panorama above shows the city of Bergen, taken from the top of the Fløien hill which is reached by a funicular railway. Bergen residents will tell you, with some pride, that it rains there every day. But, as you can see from my pic, it wasn’t raining while we were up at Fløien. It did rain later, though, so the Bergen residents were right.

Bergen funicular to Fløien, crossing pointFløien is a great spot for viewing the city of Bergen. You can see everything. So loads of tourists go up there on the funicular.

My images of it aren’t great, but this is the passing place in the middle, where the up car balances out the down car on the right of my pic. For the rest of the trip, there is only one set of rails. And if you look closely, you can just about make out the cogs between the rails since it’s very steep.

It felt like we were going up and down at an angle of about 45°. There were railings dividing off sections inside the car so that we didn’t topple into other standing passengers. Very practical, these Norwegians.

Troll at Fløien above Bergen

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National Flowers : when is a national flower not a flower?

Joanna sees Welsh daffodils and starts to wonder about national flowers

I was driving to Monmouth last week for the regular local meeting of the Society of Authors. On this occasion, I used the back road which goes through Llancloudy and I was greeted by thousands of daffodils, the national flower of Wales. It’s impossible not to smile when you drive up that hill, especially if the sun is shining as it is in this library image of the village.

I would have taken a pic of my own, but I didn’t want to be late and there wasn’t really anywhere to park safely. That’s my excuse, anyway  😉

The national flower of Wales is definitely a flower, isn’t it?

Llancloudy isn’t the only place where there are masses of daffodils to be seen round here. They’re everywhere in the Welsh borders, lining the verges and filling the gardens. And very welcome they are, too. They are usually in flower in time for St David’s Day, on 1st March.

creamy double daffodilsAt this time of year, I make a point of buying cut daffodils every week—mostly brought up from the West Country, I think—and keeping them in a vase in my kitchen. They look very cheery and raise my spirits whenever I look at them. Sometimes, the ones on sale are double varieties, like this bunch here, in an image taken in my kitchen a couple of years ago.

There can be no doubting that the national flower of Wales is a flower. And a beautiful one, too. Mind you, I can’t help remembering a certain Max Boyce, a proud Welshman and rugby enthusiast, who used to come on stage for his comedy routines carrying a huge Welsh emblem. Not, in his case, a daffodil, but an enormous leek (images 8 and 10). He was extremely funny though the leek is not, I think you’ll agree, a flower.

But what about the other national flowers in the UK and Ireland? Continue reading →

Escapist romance : must it always be set in Italy or Greece?

woman overlooking seaToday (Friday) I finished reading a romantic novel featuring a heroine who finds love over a summer in Italy. Classic escapist romance. It’s not a genre I read much—more on that later—but this one was from an author I admire and I hadn’t read any of her books for a while.

So it was timely. And I enjoyed the story very much.

There are, as you probably know, loads of books in this genre. But my reading got me thinking and asking questions.

Why are they so popular?
And why are they mostly set in Italy or Greece?
Aren’t there other places for a heroine to find love? Continue reading →

The Devil and the postman

Home again, and celebrating another voyage of discovery, complete with devil and postman. Don’t you just love it when you are driving along and suddenly discover something new?

That is what happened to me when I recently travelled back from my writers’ retreat with the Liberta Hivies (and a few others).

It was a dreich day…

raincloudsDespite the weather, we were taking the scenic route home…

mailcoach print

What I didn’t know at the time was that this was the old coaching road. Mailcoaches used this road in the 19th century to carry the mail between Dumfries and Edinburgh.

We have all seen pictures of the mailcoach dashing through the countryside, horn blaring, but did you know there is a monument? Well, you’ll have to read on to find out more about that. Continue reading →

Sarah Mallory: Living and writing in the Scottish Highlands.

Those who know me from Social media will probably realise that I have moved. A big move. Massive. After 30 years in one house I have moved to the Scottish Highlands.   To Wester Ross. It has been described as Britain’s last great wilderness, and with good reason. Moving here is not just another country, it is another life and a very different one. The language is almost the same. Almost, but not quite. One has to think more about it. No one asks where you live, it is where are you staying, as if you are just passing through.

Hospitality is generous, tea, cake or biscuits are often offered as a matter of course. Which means I need to brush up on my baking skills.

Okay, I doubt I will EVER bake anything this good!

The Scottish Highlands from a writer’s point of view

I travel through this land with my writer’s hat on. The landscape feels old. Continue reading →

Nourishment for the Soul (but no escaping literature)

Today I am calm, relaxed. I wanted to share that with you.

The reason?

I have just returned from a few days touring the Highlands. The North Coast 500 to be exact. And what has this to do with writing, you may ask? Well, it does us all good to get away from the desk occasionally, to be inspired by new locations, different ways of life.

Nourishment for the soul

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Spring gladdens the writer’s heart

It’s the end of March. The Vernal Equinox is past. We can properly talk about Spring.

spring sunshine, trees and snowviolets in springOf course, by the time this blog is published, it may be snowing again, but we don’t have a crystal ball here in the Libertà hive. So…

Instead, to gladden hearts and look forward to lighter, brighter days, we asked each hive member to give us a flavour of the things she most looks forward to with the coming of Spring. Violets rather than snow? Continue reading →

A Moving Post (if you’ll excuse the pun) : Liz and Sarah tell all

Moving is never easy

moving day boxesLiz: Moving is a two-way problem. Either you’re upsizing, in which case you don’t have enough furniture, or downsizing, in which case you have too much of everything.

moving van awaits

My Old Man said Follow the Van…

 

 

 

Sarah: To make things worse, I moved twice within twelve months (I know, madness, but we had A Plan… more of that later).

moving boxes ready to load

Liz: Aargh! I have just downsized from a five bedroom, four reception house to a two bedroom flat. I had too much of everything and what I’d have liked to have kept was mostly the wrong size. Where on earth do you start!

moving preparationsSarah: I know exactly what you mean!  We had a dream of moving to the west coast of Scotland but we had no property in mind when we moved out of our old house, so no idea what we would need to keep. All I knew was that we would not need much Continue reading →

Halloween imports we could do without? A Damely rant

fireworks for halloween and bonfire night

Bonfire night and Halloween will be over by the time you read this. [And yes, I do know that the proper spelling is Hallowe’en, but the internet doesn’t cope well with apostrophes, so I’ve had to use the non-apostrophe spelling variant.]

Bonfire night, for all its somewhat gory associations, is at least a British tradition.

But Halloween? That Trick Or Treat abomination that seems to be everywhere? Rant time. 
halloween, trick or treater

By Don Scarborough (family photo) CC BY-SA 2.5, Link

A classic American Trick-or-Treater. Note that huge bag for the haul of goodies. Continue reading →

Stirling Castle & Mary Queen of Scots’ Dad!

Stirling Castle, sitting on extinct volcano

Apologies for the tongue-in-cheek title to this post. I’m guessing that if I had headed it “Stirling Castle and James V”, quite a few of our readers would have said, “Who he?”

Stirling's statue of James V as Old Testament prophetHe is James V, King of Scots. Yes, he was the father of the rather better-known Mary, Queen of Scots.
James V and Stirling Castle had quite a relationship. (And did you know that the mound on which the castle sits is actually an extinct volcano?)

Portrait of James V of ScotlandBoth these images represent James V. In the statue, he has a long flowing beard, like an Old Testament prophet, ready to usher in a golden age for Scotland. In the portrait, he has his normal neat beard and gorgeous clothes.
He didn’t make it to prophet status. James died when he was just 30, leaving one legitimate child (Mary), who was only 6 days old. James also left at least 9 illegitimate children, so he was definitely neither saint nor prophet 😉 Continue reading →