My Personal Blog

There have been some great trips this year. Orkney in February. Mull in October. A washed out walk in pissing rain across Rannoch Moor, great mainly in retrospect. Solo backpacking in Fisherfield. But the year has been marked by trips I didn't do for various reasons... the pub to pub traverse of Glencoe. A trip to the Cuillin of Skye. Bad weather seems to have dogged my plans all year. The

How many Presidents of the United States of America have Scottish ancestry? It is perhaps both more, yet fewer, than you think. For example there is a list that states that an incredible 23 of 43 US Presidents have Scottish ancestry. But most of the bloodlines are pretty thin. Whilst a number have Scottish great-grandparents, or grandparents whose families had settled in Ulster from Scotland,

One of the earliest surviving Welsh texts, Y Gododdin, describes a war raid on the Angles. 300 warriors under Mynyddog Mwynfawr feasted for a year, fell on an overwhelmingly superior army of Angles near the Pennines, and were slaughtered. But here's the thing. You're probably imagining this war band riding out from a mountain eyrie like Snowdownia. I did when I first heard of it. But no! The