1/17 With the recent #coronation of #CharlesIII, there have been a lot of stories in the press talking about whether Canadians want to keep our traditional relationship to the British monarchy, or abandon it and choose a different head of state.
A pair of beautiful Jays suddenly appeared in the garden last week, I've never seen one before and I'm pretty sure they're not too common this far north.
Fabulous colours and an interesting head feather patterning they have.
So pleased I managed to spot one and had time to grab the camera 🙂
The unexpected Coloradan orange of Lewisian gneiss on Oldshoremore beach, Assynt. That intense blue, that white sand - like reality got a filter for the day. Something sculptural about this elemental geometry - a vast frieze carved out by the millennia.
In Scotland, the average life expectancy from 2019-2021, was 76.6 years for males and 80.8 years for females. In the poorest parts of country this falls to 68.6 years for males and 75.0 years for females.
This puts a very different perspective onto people who chant God Save The King to a man who has lead a life of huge privilege and at 74 is already older than average age at which the poorest Scottish males die. #Poverty #Scotland #AbolishTheMonarchy
I know I have some #Scotland folk following me, and tourist sites are awful for finding this sort of info:
Does anyone have recommendations for places that are on a train line, are relatively quiet, have beautiful scenery (ideally some ancient woodland) and a bunch of places to walk (not necessarily Named Routes) for, say, four or five hours?
Got my first Stealth broody of the year ,my little Scots Dumpy bantam went AWOL a few days back ,I knew for certain she hadnt been eaten shes very wick and she was with another chicken and the cat in the front garden so nothing could have got her (cats afraid of the chickens) I stayed out this morning to watch and sure enough she suddenly appeared ,no idea from where so shes def in my garden somewhere .She disapeared just as magically in the seconds it took to let the cockerals out #Chickens
#Scots#Scotland#Livestock#Chickens#Poultry#Allotments
This is Flora last year when I managed to persuade her to nest in a coop .Shes a Scots Dumpy ,which for a while was Scotlands national symbol and is the reason its symbol is a thistle ,Dumpys were carried by the Scots army to warn of anyone approaching,the Romans tried to sneak up under cover of darkness,the birds sounded the alarm ,the Romans ended up driven into a thistle patch and roundly beaten :) https://www.raising-chickens.org/Scots-Dumpy-Chicken.html
A few more pictures from the rally for a Republic, here in Edinburgh this afternoon. Was particularly nice to see my MP, Tommy Sheppard, and one of my MSPs, @lornaslater, speaking.
Some pictures from the rally for a Republic, here in Edinburgh this afternoon. Lots of good speakers, interesting discussions, normal clothes, and yeah, slightly dreich weather.