6th November 2024 Hi, This brief blog is an accompaniment to the photos I took whilst in Northumberland for a three day trip with brother Donald, sister Rachel and brother in law Brian. It was the last chance to catch up with Donald prior to his return to New Zealand. It also ticked a few items on my retirement bucket list, namely Lindisfarne and Bamburgh. Wednesday October 30th It was a two and a half hour drive from Glasgow to Alnwick where we met up for lu...

23rd October 2024 Hi, This is just a quick note to accompany the recently posted photos of time spent in Scotland with family from New Zealand. August 29th-31st You can see from my previous blog that the wider family spent a week in Portugal in early September. Prior to that, my brother Donald, who I hadn't seen for five years, had come up to Scotland. We had a great day trip on 29th August to St Andrews, visiting the Royal and Ancient Club for lunch and bein...

18th October 2024 Hi, Our last major family gathering was seven years ago when we assembled in Italy for big brother Donald's Big Six-O. Since then we've had a pandemic which restricted travel and although in the pipeline for some time, another event just didn't happen. Finally this year a global reunion was planned with family coming from New Zealand and Japan to meet up with the relatives based in Scotland and England. Portugal was chosen as the destination ...

13th July 2024 Hi, On the 3rd of July I took a trip which will live long in the memory: a visit to Rona, a remote Scottish island with which I have strong links through my MacLeod ancestry. Our family have a direct link back to Malcolm MacLeod (1682-1761) the tenth Chief of the MacLeod's of Raasay. An old timey Malcolm X! The third generation down from Malcolm X is John MacLeod (1814-1884) known as Iain Ban (Fair-haired Iain), a crofter/fisherman. He married a...

9th July 2024 Hi, After about four years of stalled planning, I finally got around to visiting Eileen, a friend of over thirty years in the County Westmeath in the Republic of Ireland. Travelling with Catherine, another friend of fifty years (minimum), we flew from Glasgow to Dublin Airport on June 24th. Our destination was Moate in Westmeath.If you think of Dublin on the east coast and Galway on the west, County Westmeath is almost half way between in the Mid...