Celebrating Scotland's Heritage: Shopping At Heritage of Scotland

What is 'Scottishness?'

What makes us 'Scottish'?

We are a proud nation, a strong nation, a warm and hospitable nation, a beautiful nation.

Recently, like many, I have been re-investigating my nationality in the quest for identity.

It's not all about Tartan and Haggis.  Hell, it's bugger all to do with that at all.

For too long we have been a stereotype in the world - to many we are giant Tunnocks tea cakes and sporrans for handbags...but it's NOT like that.

Scottishness is innate.  Either you feel it, or you don't.  I don't think it's explainable.

It's not anything you think it might be.  And it's everything that makes any other nationality go, 'What?  Really?'

We have a crazy, self-depricating sense of humour.  The kind where calling your mate 'a bawbag' is a term of high endearment.

We have a way of going the long, hard way around things.  It's never easy and is usually punctuated by biting wind, whiplash rain and mud trails down yer lobby (hallway) carpet.

I love being Scottish.  It's not an easy gig, by any stretch of the imagination.  But it's fun, characterful, and for such a wee nation, well, it's easy to say that everyone knows who we are, usually has a good word to say about us.

Heritage of Scotland ( www.heritageofscotland.com ) have a great online store where you can celebrate your Scottishness, or indeed, help you inject a bit of Scottish goodness in your life.

Shopping on the website is a great experience, supported by some of the best and most attentive online customer service around AND it has it's own loyalty scheme too!

Airgid is the Gaelic word for money and is the currency which was used in Scotland hundreds of years ago. It is the name of the loyalty points and represents the loyalty scheme which Heritage of Scotland uses.

There are airgid to be gained on purchases, when you sign up for newsletters, for giving reviews on the website itself on bought products AND you can use them against any purchase you make online!

As you accrue them, they gather in your own personal account, and are there to utilise whenever you like; so always good for a wee treat for yourself.

Kilts and accessories for men can be found HERE

I was sent some airgid in order to try out some happy website ordering and I had a great time. There's so much to choose from - and it was very time-consuming simply browsing through the vast array of kilts, clothing, gifts, accessories, souvenirs, children's items, home ware and jewellery!

Everything is extremely good quality - definitely not your usual souvenir/gift ware tat - and all purchases are tracked in order to make sure you receive your goodies safely (although at a cost, or free if you just want standard Royal Mail).

So, what did I order?

Well, I tried to sum up Scottishness with my choice.  An impossible task! Plus, it was impossible not to be swayed by Deal of The Day, which changes every single day!  Ahrgh!  I did spend more time than was acceptable really deliberating over quite a few deals of the day!

But I think I definitely rounded up the best qualities.

1. Beauty

Pewter earrings with purple Amethyst

Scotland is well known for it's beautiful scenery - rolling hills and gorgeous flora and fauna punctuate the blue and grey hues of the skies on yet another rainy day.  We may not always have the best weather, but there's always a flash of purple heather or the top of a thistle blowing in the grassy thick to catch your eye.


The jewellery on the Heritage of Scotland website is nothing short of beautiful.  There are some really stunning bracelets, necklaces and earrings.  Now, I am not a huge jewellery fan.  Mainly because I never have anything that costs a lot of money and if I have something that costs a lot of money and I have to take it off and it gets lost, or it has a chance of breaking; well, that's going to upset me a lot! I do however have a thing for stud earrings.  Practical and  pretty?  I'm there.

I love these cute thistle earrings. Made from Pewter, wonderfully detailed and discreetly sparkly, they are the perfect choice for a bit of patriotic day wear.

Pewter Eternal Interlace

As are these gorgeous circular Celtic swirls.  Very small, yet beautifully detailed, they look very nice indeed and are small and pretty; a hint of history too.

2. Myth and Legend

Bogles, kelpies, faeries, ghouls, ghosties and of course, Nessie.

The Loch Ness Monster still gets people talking and Loch Ness itself is a gorgeous place to go if you are ever up visiting.

I love the story of Nessie - the idea that a secret monster lurks in the loch has been a huge draw for tourism and the subject of many an investigation.

Why not celebrate the oddities of the country with some tongue in cheek homeware, like this pottery Nessie?

Purchase Pottery Nessie HERE

I love her - she fits right in with my eccentric collection of bits and I love how she looks like she is just peeping up to say hello.  Very cool!

3. Warmth and Hospitality

We are a hugely welcoming and accepting lot. We love company and any chance to sit down, invite a stranger in and make a new friend is grabbed with both hands.

Scots are well known for their hospitality and warmth - so why not offer your friends and family some homely comforts when they come into your home?

Find a cosy tartan rug for your home HERE

This gorgeous, cosy , tartan rug is perfect for putting in the back of the car for some warming up after a long walk, draping over the back of a chair for covering shivery legs, or comfy-ing up your sofa in anticipation of visitors. It's big enough to use as a throw on the end of a bed, or cuddling up after a wintery wander. Mmm! Braw!

4. Banter!

It's my main joy in life.  I love the banter.  I love nothing better than sitting around with a group of old friends, casually insulting each other in a show of love and complete happiness.  A lot of people don't really get banter, and that's fine, but I think if you live in a cold country, where it's dark, life can be a bit grim and you get flashes of craziness day to day, well, you develop a bit of a dark humour.

Up Yer Kilt!

I love this 'Up Yer Kilt', pin.  Sums it right up.  Means, it but doesn't really mean it.  In a vicious, nice kind of way.  Spot on.

5. Celebrations!

Naeb'dy celebrates like us Scots!

Heritage of Scotland is the perfect shop to purchase all of your wedding gear - from Kilts, to Favours, Quaichs, to Wedding Dresses!  Check out their amazing range of gorgeous bridal wear and tartan accessories. There's sizing charts and advice on Kilt fitting too, so no need to worry about getting it wrong.  And if you do - returns and exchanges are hassle free.

Ah, we were so young and carefree! Ha ha!

My own wedding was a Black Watch Tartan affair, and although I spent very little on the big day (more on that another time!) , the one thing I did purchase was a gorgeous Black Watch, woollen shawl to compliment my dress and also to keep me warm - I got married in January, very chilly! A lovely keepsake too! I still use it now, just around the house to keep cosy and sometimes on trips to the theatre, where I can sit and look both stylish and smug because the theatre can be really cold...brrr! Hee hee!


Check out Heritage of Scotland on Facebook, Twitter, and of course at www.heritageofscotland.com

Why I'm Saying Yes

With less than a month to go until the Scottish Referendum on Independence, to determine if our strong, characterful nation is strong and characterful enough to go it alone, tensions are high in and around the country.

Every newspaper, every media outlet, and most importantly, everyone at work, in the playground, on the radio, on the television, on the doorstep, on the high street are all debating the ins and outs of independence.

It's an emotive and passionate issue from a very emotive and passionate people.  Never before have I seen everyone so interested and outspoken about their own political beliefs.  It's amazing to see people who never previously bothered to look beyond the ballot paper finally getting to grips with the state of their own country; assessing it, casting a critical eye over what is actually happening in the day to day lives of the people around them.

Discussion is everywhere.

And that can only be a good thing.

Without going too hard and heavy with the political reasoning behind my decision, I will openly say, quite proudly, that I will be voting a strong YES on September 18th.

You can all read for yourselves about the various issues and arguments surrounding currency, economics, etc. etc.

My reasons for voting YES are very personal.

Ever since I was wee, I have always been very aware of my standing in life.  There has always been a class system, as far as I am concerned.  I was lucky enough to live in a well off area, among some very nice folk, who were all very well off themselves.

I was brought up in the fancy, upper/middle class area, where people lived in big fancy houses and mummy and daddy had a car each.  They all shopped at Tesco, and on their 17th birthdays, some of them even got some pretty sweet cars, or, were insured to drive their parents' cars.

Our school was one that aimed high, that presumed it's pupils would have fabulous Higher results, that they would go to University straight from a well-run sixth year, into Law degrees, Medicine degrees, or find themselves on Gap years.

Me?  Well, I was never meant to be there. Not really.

Mine was a circumstantial nice life and I never really fit into it.  I found my niche of course, I found it outside of school altogether, and into outside drama clubs and musical theatre societies, where I mixed with kids from all over the city, with whom I felt a hell of a lot more comfortable.

I was only in suburbia because of two factors; my mum was a single parent and my grandparents lived there.  We lived there to be close to them, and the schools were decent schools.  It was a good fit.  It was safe.

I still didn't fit in though.

Mum being a single parent and a carer for our grandparents meant that our family very much relied on benefits while we grew up.  My school uniform was bought with vouchers which meant we always got the cheapest and best, and these stopped when I was around 16, so after that I used my money from my job as a weekend waitress at a coffee shop, my £2.50 an hour, to buy myself some uniform so that my Mum didn't have to find the money.

The stuff I used to hear in the playground about benefits and the people on them too - things that had obviously been learned from parents and handed down statements:

'Scroungers'
'Lazy people on benefits'
'Get a fucking job'
'Useless'

And, well, you know the drill.
There's nothing like a dose of that now and again to make you feel like a worthless, lazy, scrounging, useless bastard, no matter how many fake Tommy Hilfiger jackets you wore to school (yuck) or how many weekends you'd lost to working since you were 13 years old pouring coffee to discerning old ladies (man, were they discerning!) for a pittance.

We shopped at Kwik Save for puffy crisps which were more air than crisp and shampoo that smelled like grapefruit, but would stain the grout of the tiles in the bathroom if you got it on them.

I had to hide the fact that I received (very, very, gratefully) my Education Maintenance Fund (EMA) which allowed me to buy shoes and stationery for school. While my peers shopped in the finest boutique stores, spending hundreds, carelessly on their Final Fling (Prom) dress, mine came from a charity shop (quite rightly too - what a waste of money that would have been!).

I was never ashamed, never really bothered, but I was quite pissed off by the comments, the wee jibes, the pokes in the ribs that weren't exactly aimed at me personally, but certainly people like me. My pals and their pals would mouth off at a moment's notice about scroungers on benefits, who were lazy and useless.  They'd see me grimace and say 'oh, but not you - you're not like that!'

I understood where they were coming from though, even if I didn't agree.

How can a 17 year old kid who has never had a job, who has never had to walk a huge distance to save the bus money, who has never had to get dry in front of the Calor gas heater, who has never had to put Polythene around the windows instead of double glazing supposed to know anything other than what they've been told by the hands that feed them?

We weren't especially well off, we were definitely the 'have-nots' in a land of 'haves' but we didn't struggle like a lot of people did.  I was very well aware of folk who had it worse.  Oh yes, there were a hell of a lot of people who couldn't afford the gas for the heater or the nice insulating plastic for the windows.  And damn, if it was cold in my house, it must have been bloody freezing in theirs.

I hope you get the relevance of what I am trying to say here - but I suppose it was no real coincidence that every time there was an election, even as a wee lassie, I noticed the politics.  I noticed them, because my family were not from these parts and my family were affronted.

We lived in an area that voted Tory.  They had their blues in their windows, proud to be 'Conservative'.  They were older, and they did not like change. My family, like the families around me handed down to me their own narrative, and yes, it was extremely anti-Tory.

Why?

The Tories vilified single parents - mothers in particular.
The Tories abhorred those on benefits.
The Tories did away with public services (in which the majority of my family worked).
The Tories like hunting.
The Tories took away things from the education system that couldn't be replaced.

Conservatism was a dirty word in our house.  No change meant no future, no equality.  It was 'jobs for the boys'. It was no higher education for people like me. It was the closure of mental health facilities where my family worked and my grandad was resident. It was the cutting of benefits which meant poor food, poor nutrition, no chances.

Yet they got in every time.  And if they didn't get in, it was the SNP.  And the SNP were viewed as a Scottish Tory in our house - the affluent folk around them, when they thought they were branching out a bit voted them in time and time again.

And I vowed, I would never vote SNP.  I owed it to my grandparents, to my mum, to my family.  We were hard working people - even if we did need a hand from time to time. We didn't deserve to be vilified.  We didn't deserve to be kept down.

I have to say here, I was wrong.  I have never been more thankful for the free education I got at University AND College due to measures created by the SNP. I am so very grateful for that.

Maybe if my grandparents were alive now they'd bear it enough to thank them for that.

A lot has changed in the last 10 years. Devolution has meant so much to us as a nation; a parliament, power, free education, the ability to offer free NHS prescriptions.

But now the opportunity has come for us to have so much more, and damn, I am all for taking it with two hands.

And, oddly, I'm feeling rather warm towards SNP for the opportunity.

Even if I will still probably never vote for them.

Nobody in this lifetime (unless comfortable throughout) will forget austerity or recession or food banks.

If you have no idea about people on welfare these days and the amount the actually get and what they actually have to do to get it, please, please educate yourselves.  It's unbelievable.

If you think that is an easy way of life, you are very much mistaken. If you don't know, you've been too damn comfortable. Lucky you.

I have my Yes sticker on my car and it fills me with joy. It's my wee middle finger to the world.  It fills me with even greater joy when I see them on other cars.  But not as much as the huge signs and the window signs and the wee lapel badges.

What I have seen more and more, is that I am not alone. Every bugger that displays a Yes is a bugger who's struggled, is someone who has rallied against the status quo and been shoved down, is someone who has felt that inequality and the sharp jab in the ribs every time they've put their head above the parapet.

I am lucky enough to work in a public service, and I see every day, first hand, the immigrants, the migrant workers, those on benefits, the drug addicts, the grannies with their grandchildren who would otherwise be in care, the budget cuts and the engineers who can't even get a job in McDonald's. They struggle like you wouldn't belive.  And they might be whatever to the media and whoever else, but they are all people and they all have a story and they all have a life, just like you and me.

Myself and my own family now - we struggle.  We are both in apparently well-paid and responsible, graduate jobs. We don't do a food shop every week because we cannot afford to.  Sometimes we can't take the car because there's no money for petrol. Sometimes our last pound in our pockets is really, genuinely all we have.  We have spent a lot of time recently gathering up our old clothes not to hand in to charity shops, but to sell for an extra £5 to get some basics. We rifle through the kids DVDs and our old jewellery to sell it off to pay a bill.  We struggle a lot. And we are not alone. And, if we  are struggling, how is everyone else on less than us coping?

There are so many people out there who feel a change in the air and want to embrace it.

What is a No?

It's a negative. It's fear.  It's war and nuclear arms that we don't want or need apart from in some kind of horrific 'end-game' scenario. It's a continuation of the same. But maybe worse. With little to no say.

Yes is brave.  Yes is fed up of struggle and fed of of being turned down.  Yes is a pride, a balance, a strong positive.  It's not a maybe. It's not a can't or a won't. It's a knowledge that things might be tough for a bit, but it's also a 'fuck it - things are already tough'. It's a 'let's struggle through together and be the best we can be.'

It's work, yes, but man, I am NOT afraid of hard work.

I have never been able to afford that.

I'll leave you with what Dave said tonight.  He said:

'If we don't get a Yes vote, Scotland won't be a country any more.  It will always just be the idea of a country.'

And you know what kids?  There's a heck of a lot of truth in that.

My 5 WTF Commonwealth Sports

What is that mascot even about?

I AM NOT A SPORTS FAN!

I have however been made to watch a lot of sport against my will this evening, so consider this post a product of my ever-amounting rage at  the torture-fest that is organised sporting events interrupting the television schedule/normal life.

You're welcome.

1. Squash.

I have just spent more time than anyone should have watching this on the TV.  Two people, in a box, hitting a ball off a wall.  Isn't this just the very same game you used to play when you'd been inside a bit too long in the summer holidays, driving the adults insane.  Your mum would lose the plot with you and shout at you to 'Get Out!', and you'd traipse woefully to the garden, tennis ball in hand.

You'd spend virtually hours playing this game by yourself outside, because this was the week your best pal was on holiday, or it was the last week of the holidays and everyone was completely fed up, so you'd take it out on the harling stone outside your neighbours' house, which would no doubt bring them running out to tell you to bugger off even further up the street to bother someone else.

Why are grown people playing it now?


2. Swimming

Okay, I am impressed by fast swimming.  I'm not a big swimmer, so I am always impressed by something I can't do.  But what I am not impressed by are the varying strokes.  There's nothing more odd than watching grown, muscly, beautiful-bodied men doing the Butterfly stroke.

Why?  Why are we making them do this?  They look crazy.  And also, hello!  It makes them go slower!

People do some funny things for money in this world, but this swimming oddly in a stroke that serves no real purpose has to be up there with one of the weirdest.

3. Lawn Bowls

Right. Lawn bowls.  This is the game I am imagining I'm going to get into when I'm old.  Why?  Because, basically, it's an excuse to join one of those wee clubs where there'll be other older folk and more importantly, there will be a licensed and cheap bar, selling nips and a dash for £1.50 and packets of peanuts.

Which I am going to propose is the only reason Lawn Bowls is really still alive as a sport today.  I think it's probably one of the world's best-kept secrets - Lawn Bowls = cheap drinking on the sly, which is why Scotland's Commonwealth Games opened with it.  Like a sly wink to the guy behind the cheap veneer bar.

4. Tandem Biking

I caught this the other day.  Kudos to the sports people who are taking part in this - it is equal parts brave and talented to be able to work as a team like that, whizzing around the track at speed on a very thin, tiny, tandem bike.  Especially as part of the deal is that one of you is visually impaired.  Hats off to the men and women who compete in this sport.

My only qualm is - the person at the back has to put their nose on the person in front's bum!

It must be a streamlining thing or something (they were all doing it), but it does look pretty funny.  Definitely a 'bum' deal...(geddit?)

5.Table Tennis

The tagline for this sport is 'Agility. Precision. Focus.' and I am in no way disputing that this is what you do in fact need to be a successful Table Tennis player.

But when I was at school, Table Tennis was the lazy bastard approach to P.E.  Nobody took it seriously.  Indeed, our teacher was so annoyed by our lack of interest in physical exercise by 4th year, and the amount of girls who managed to pull out of the class every week, that she began to just let us mooch about beside the Table Tennis table for a quiet life.  Where we did nothing.  No precision, agility OR focus there, let me tell you.

The only other place I ever saw Table Tennis being played in real life and not in Forrest Gump, was at our local Youth Club in the early 90's.  By two wee boys who battered a ruined ping pong ball with those table tennis bats, which were so old, the foam had been either picked (or chewed?) off, or the very glue that had held them together had failed and the foam was just flapping about.  It never struck me that when someone was buying the resources for anywhere that they would add 'table tennis equipment' to the list, so again, I am a bit surprised that this has ended up as a sport that lots of people compete at.

Sun-cream? Today?

Today we needed SUN-CREAM!

We never need sun-cream!

We live in Scotland!

We especially never need sun-cream on Easter Sunday.

Typically, Easter Sunday in Scotland is known as a pishy, rainy kind of day where we drag the kids to our local parks, make them roll their chocolate eggs down a soggy hill, which may or may not be covered in dog poo, take them home, have a re-roll of the egg down the stairs and then sit in, eat too much chocolate and moan at each other.

Not today!

Our family have an amazing auntie, who makes sure that we gather as a family and do lovely family things together.  She, and my lovely Uncle and cousins of course, have us over every holiday to celebrate in many different ways - and Easter is no exception.  We are very lucky that she does all of this for us - we all have an amazing time.

Dave, rocking the bunny look

Today we had an egg hunt (where the kids and adults

foraged wearing bunny masks and little cardboard baskets), 

an egg-and-spoon race and an egg-roll, all accompanied by Auntie M's trademark stand-up buffet meal, including nibbles, pizza and crudites!  We are one very, very lucky family!

Pretty sure Ethan couldn't see!

The kids played in the garden with minimal supervision, the adults joked around and caught up, everyone was chilled and happy.

A HUGE thank you to Auntie M!

'I got TONS of millions of eggs, mum!'