Tag Archives: highland healer

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

L is for Loch, the Gaelic word for lake.  Sea inlets can be called a firth or a sea loch.   

View across Loch Lomond, towards Ben Lomond.

Loch Lomond from just below Beinn Dubh and Creag an t-Seilich,             by wfmillar

Scotland has many lochs and smaller lochs called lochans, as well as firths.   Some of the most famous are Lommand, Awe, Rannoch, Tay, and of course, Ness.  

We’ll get to Loch Ness tomorrow.

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

K is for Kilt.  

What else could it be on my blog?  That storied garment, favored by braw Highlanders of the past in romance novels, and more than a few Hollywood actors of today – on special occasions, of course.    

Modern kilt – From alphakilts.com

And does he or doesn’t he? Oh, the memes on Facebook – “It’s a kilt.  If you wear anything under it, it’s a skirt.”  It’s up to the whim of the wearer, or the weather, I suppose.  

Before the modern stitched kilt, there was the belted plaid – yards of fabric, laid out on the ground, pleated and folded.  

Belted Plaid – Courtesy David Ball

The wearer would lie down on it, wrap it around, secure it with a belt and pull a length up over a shoulder.  A lot of work, but handy as a ground cover or blanket if the need arose.  

Nowadays, the pleats are stitched down, and there are buttons to make donning the kilt easy.  As I overheard one kilt fitter explain to a customer at the Highland games I recently attended, it’s good to fit it to the tightest button now, leaving ‘ease’ in the waistband to make room for his wife to feed him up in the future.  Kilts are meant to last!

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

J is for James.  James IV to be exact.  There were several King Jameses during Scotlands history, as well as pretenders to the throne.  The term Jacobite (from the latin for James – Jacobus) comes from those attempts to restore James II, a Stuart, and his descendants to the thrones of England, Scotland and Wales in the 1600s and 1700.  

But before that, there was a series of James, 1 through VI, who ruled Scotland, or attempted to, one right after the other in the 15th and 16th century.  James VI become James 1 of England and united the two countries under one crown, if not one state.

James IV was an educated man, interested in the arts, literature, and science.  He spoke seven languages, built up the Scottish navy, and attempted to make peace with England, forging a treaty with Henry VII and marrying his daughter, Margaret, sister to Henry VIII.  

James IV of Scotland

But James was also bound by the Auld Alliance, the mutual defense treaty with France dating back to the 1200s.   When Henry VIII  invaded France, James IV invaded England and was killed in the battle at Flodden Fields, just over the Border in northern England.  Most of his nobles, lairds and their heirs died with him that day.  

The heir to the Scottish throne, James V was a toddler.  The power vacuum left in the wake of this disaster affected all parts of Scotland for years to come.  

This time period is the setting for my Highland Talents books.  The first, Highland Healer, is available at most retailers.  The second, Highland Seer, is due out later this year.

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

I is for Islay, pronounced “Eye-la,” an island on Scotland’s southwest coast in the southern Hebrides, home to several whisky producers and known for strongly flavored, peaty single-malts due to the water on the island filtering through peaty ground, as well as salt spray from the surrounding ocean.

Bunnahabhain Bay – From islayinfo.com

The distilleries currently operating on Islay are Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain (see B is for Bunnahabhain), Caol Ila,  Lagavulin, and Laphroaig.  Bunnahabhain on the north coast draws its water from a spring, so it lacks the pronounced peat and salt flavors.

The number of distilleries on Islay has varied over time to as many as 23.  

From Wikimedia Commons – Mortendreier

Islay is also home to Scotland’s first wave-power station.

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

H is for Hogmanay, the Scottish celebration of the New Year.  Besides cleaning the house and hearth to start the new year fresh, one of my favorite traditions is the one called “First Footer.”

The first visitor on January first is called the First Footer.  It’s considered good luck if that person is male, dark haired, and arrives bearing gifts – coal or peat, shortbread and whisky.  

Gerry would do nicely, don’t you think?

We adopted this practice from a Scottish neighbor years ago.  We’d celebrate New Year’s with a progressive dinner around the neighborhood (so no one had to drive anywhere). Appetizers at one house, dinner at another, dessert at a third, and “Bells” at the last – the champagne and whisky part of the evening.

 At five minutes to midnight, the tallest, darkest-haired, male neighbor got thrown out into the cold.  Occasionally,w e’d remember to give him a glass of whisky to warm him while he waited, especially if it was snowing.  Once the ball came down in Times Square, we’d let him back in and the party would continue, good luck having been bestowed on the home hosting “Bells.”

What New Year’s traditions do you celebrate?

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

G is for Gaelic, one of the many languages and dialects spoken throughout history in Scotland, Ireland and other Celtic regions.

 Scottish Gaelic is still spoken, often along with English, in the Highlands and the Western Isles, and to a lesser degree elsewhere in Scotland. There are also small Gaelic-speaking communities in Canada. 

Gaelic may have been brought to Scotland around the 4th century AD from Ireland. It spread throughout Scotland but began to retreat north and westwards from the 11th century onwards.  

From Celtic-Scotland on Facebook.

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.