Tag Archives: Act of Union

Scone 54

26th April 2021 billpaterson1@me.com 9 Comments

Now, you may be puzzled by the Scone 54 title of this post? Let us explain. We don’t normally get personal in this blog … except of course with eejits like Johnson and Cameron. Normally we try and keep things fairly anonymous because after all this is a serious, insightful, hard hitting blog that politicians and shoddy sconeries have come to fear! Yeah right! However, on this occasion we are prepared to make an exception. This is a little bit personal but, we’ll hope you agree, for a valid reason.

Good friends, A&A (we’ll keep it slightly anonymous), were celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary and as a result invited us round to their house for a cream tea. Now do you get the Scone 54 title?

Lucky, lucky lucky

We thought about the invitation for all of what must have been a fraction of a nanosecond … a no-brainer! What an achievement! Not many people get the pleasure of spending this amount of time with their loved ones. Having said that, all our friends have been married for what seems like all of their lives a

54th wedding anniversary — scones al fresco

nd they are, without exception, very happy. Not sure if that says anything about our generation or the times we were brought up in but probably not. We have all just been very lucky with our partners. At 54 years, however, A&A are leading the charge . I am reluctant to say that I was their best man because it reveals my age as being greater than mid fifties … but I was!

Scotland is having wonderful weather for April so we sat in the their back garden (COVID rules still don’t allowed us to have friends indoors) and were treated to homemade scones served with strawberry jam and lots of cream … oh, and bubbles. Can you think of a better way to spend an afternoon?

The scones were definitely topscones … and we are not just saying that out of politeness to A&A. Just the right size, slightly crunchy exterior and wonderfully soft interior. In fact, everything was perfect.

54 at 54

By the time we had eaten all the scones and drunk all the bubbles we wanted to carry on so Pat invited everyone round to ours for a BBQ. That went on until well after dark and many sausages and burgers were dispatched in the process. The culmination was a marshmallow toasting session over the fire.

A fantastic way to celebrate a fantastic achievement with fantastic friends. If you are wondering what 54 years of togetherness, making and eating scones looks like, look no further. Many thanks A&A.

Because Scone 54 is more of a personal post we thought we might leave the politics off to one side for a change. Then we thought that A&A would definitely prefer us to take a potshot at Boris & Co.

Westminster now seems to be abandoning the voluntary nature of the Act of Union that currently binds the four distinct parts of the UK together. It has done for over 300 years. Now they are thinking of bringing in legislation to make it illegal to have a referendum on Scottish Independence until Westminster thinks it’s a good idea … in other words, sometime never! The Union will be maintained by force of law. The people of Scotland won’t have a say in their own future. That’s UK democracy! Au contraire Boris, the Scottish people will have their say and you better believe it. With a bit of luck you will go down in history as the man who broke the Union! Okay, that’s it, another marshmallow please.

Scones, weird

Queen Anne Tearoom

28th November 2016 billpaterson1@me.com 3 Comments

Although we have lived in or near to Edinburgh for most of our lives up until now we have never been inside the Castle. We have done the Military Tattoo in the past and been up at the castle many times but not actually inside. A bit strange really but we just didn’t feel the need. Also, of course, in the summer it’s extremely busy with tourists and, as it turns out, it’s extremely busy in the winter as well. Had we not already had tickets for a book reading we would have had to wait in a queue for about 30 minutes to get a ticket. Hundreds of Japanese, Chinese, French, Americans, Germans … amazing, all in temperatures no higher than 2ºC!

Our book reading was by Sara Sheridan to publicise her latest novel On Starlit Seas and it just so happened that there was an afternoon tea thrown in as well as a tour of the castle. How could we refuse?

External view of tearoom at Edinburgh Castle — The Queen Anne tearoom

There are a two tearooms but ours was the Queen Anne Tearoom up at the top of the castle. So we were able to explore everything on the way up. We stood waiting for the one o’clock gun to go off. Watching our watches. Watching the gun. And got the fright of our lives when it did go off … bang on one o’clock! Lots of exhibits about Scotland’s history culminating in the room housing the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny.

Scottish aristocrats

Here you are warned within an inch of your life that you must not take ph

The tearoom for afternoon tea at Edinburgh Castle — part of the tearoom

otographs or make any sort of recording. People answering their phones were pounced on and told to put them away. What on earth is that all about? Anyway we looked dutifully at everything. Although there was a lot about the 1707 Act of Union, we could not see much mention of the fact that it was forced on the people of Scotland against their will. That the Scottish aristocrats (the only people allowed to influence proceedings) had to be bribed with £20,000 each in order to get it passed. Maybe we missed that bit?
The afternoon tea was very imaginative. The whole menu was based around ‘Book Week Scotland’ and book titles. Outlander sandwiches, Alice in Wonderland “Eat Me” sponge cakes and Mrs Weasley’s chocolate fudge tart.

Secret Mandarin scones

You will see from the menu that there were ‘mandarin’ scones inspired by Sara’s book The Secret Mandarin. Although this was all very nice, for dedicated sconeys, this was taking things a bit too far. They were very tangy and sweet, more like cakes, and covered in an orange drizzle that made them even sweeter. With strawberry jam?? At the end of the day they weren’t toooo bad – just ‘weird’. Don’t let our experience put you off visiting. We don’t think the scones are normally like this.

Kings of Scotland display at Edinburgh Castle — Kings of Scotland

On Starlit Seas

It was a really enjoyable day. The castle was interesting though the information was a bit sanitised for our taste. The reading from On Starlit Seas was really interesting. Sara is a lovely lady who managed to spend time with everyone individually. We wish her well with the book. The afternoon tea was great as well in spite of our reservations about the scones.

Looking east from Edinburgh Castle — Looking east from the Castle towards dusk

EH1 2NG tel: 0131 225 9846 Edinburgh Castle

Ordinary, Scones

The Pier Tearoom

18th June 2016 billpaterson1@me.com 4 Comments

The writing was on the wall from the start. When James Graham, Marquess of Montrose was promoted to Duke as reward for his support in bringing about the Act of Union in 1707, he was never going to be best buddies with Scotland’s Robin Hood, Rob Roy MacGregor. When the Duke, no doubt flushed with his new found importance, confiscated the MacGregor lands, that really put the tin lid on their relationship.

Factor's island, Stronachlachar — Factor’s island, Stronachlachar

In an act of retaliation, Rob Roy imprisoned Montrose’s factor (rent collector) on an island on Loch Katrine and to this day it is still known as Factor’s island. Rob Roy was born at Glengyle, just a short distance away.

Punishment

View from the pier — View from Stronachlachar

As if to punish the Factor further, the island is less than a 100 meters from this great wee tearoom with a glass conservatory, so he would have had to sit alone and hungry on his island watching folk tucking into cakes, scones and all sorts of other goodies. Absolutely no mercy!

We have no idea

We were here to meet with our intrepid Trossachs correspondents who, readers will remember, were recently reporting from Gibraltar. What better place for a debriefing session than here at Stronachlachar, one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. The steamship Sir Walter Scott usually docks here but on this occasion the much smaller Lady of The Lake came into the pier and disgorged her cargo of happy walkers and cyclists. The tearoom has everything you would want; free wifi; fine coffee; fine wine; home made cakes … and scones, but not homemade?? Why, when they make their own cakes, they don’t make their own scones, we have no idea.

Anyway, in the middle of an intense discussion on modern trends in sconology, we received our scones. Nicely presented with lots of jam and cream. They were enjoyable enough though the overall feeling was that the bicarbonate had been overdone, leaving a slight aftertaste. No topscone unfortunately but this is still a great tearoom in a great setting and, if you go, you will enjoy it, though hopefully the use of this old phone box will not be necessary!

Loch Katrine, of course, has been the water supply for the city of Glasgow since the 1850s, a phenomenal feat of engineering and far-sightedness. The water flows 35 miles into the city only dropping 10 inches in every mile. Do we have similarly far-sighted politicians today? We fear not. Modern day neo-liberalism means that those in power cannot see much further than the end of their noses! Musn’t speak too ill of them however, as the debacle over the EU referendum has been interrupted by the tragic murder of Labour’s Jo Cox. It’s very much a time for sympathy and solidarity.

FK8 3TY tel: 01877 386 374 The Pier Tearoom

New gin venture

On our journey home we unexpectedly stumbled upon this .. the Trossachs distillery … fantastic. Only opened two weeks previously, we thought we should at least give it a mention. Brainchild of the affable Dale McQueen, it produces gin in a variety of flavours using a unique distillation method. He even puts it in nice, dark blue ceramic bottles. The gin market is ‘busy busy’ at the moment so we hope Dale gets a favourable wind for his venture. Online shop at the link below. We chose the ‘sweet citrus’ and the ‘mocha’ and the … noooo we didn’t buy them all. Might go back for the others!FK17 8LR tel:07968 063125 Trossachs Distillery

Ordinary, Scones

Barony Castle Hotel

17th January 2016 billpaterson1@me.com 1 Comment

Regular readers will know that we have a propensity for trying to find things we have read about, Raratongan princesses, Gartmore moon dials and the like. Today it is big concrete maps of Scotland. We came across some scrappy details of this thing several months back but had never managed to get round to actually finding it. What we did know was that the weather would have to be kind if we were to get detailed pictures. Today was one of these days, cloudless skies, no wind. Ideal for taking pictures of big concrete maps.

Weather

We had established that it lay in the grounds of this hotel in Eddleston. However we had not taken account of the fact that in the thirty odd miles it took us to get there the world would be transformed into a winter wonderland. Three inches of snow covering everything! When we left home there was no snow whatsoever. Best laid plans etc etc. Detailed pictures were obviously out of the question, but at least we found it … and it was quite something.

A little history. In 1942 the hotel building was requisitioned as a training college for the Polish forces based here to protect the east coast of Scotland from German invasion. In 1968, one of the former soldiers, Jan Tomasi, ended up buying it and for reasons that are not entirely clear, in the mid 70s, set about building this concrete relief map in the grounds. Now known as the ‘Great Polish Map of Scotland‘ or Mapa Scotland.

Photo taken from a display board to show the size (40mx50m) and location, the hotel is top right

It was built exactly to scale so that when the seas were filled with water the lochs etc would also fill. At the moment it is being restored by Historic Scotland. As well as being covered in snow it didn’t have any water either .. great!

view of snow covered Mapa Scotland — Looking from SW, annotated to help orientation. The pole in the middle is to indicate Ben Nevis. Water would normally come up to the top of the dark walls.

Imagination

With a little imagination however it is not hard to see that, when fully restored, it will be rather special. All well and good but, having completed a lap of the country, scone time was fast approaching so we headed off back towards the hotel. Feeling frustrated by the lack of good pictures but quite pleased at having found the object of our expedition.

The hotel building dates back to 1666 and is now part of the Mercure Group. It has a slightly foreboding welcome sign above the entrance. On the other hand, if He is actually here, would the baking be devine … exciting! Our scones were nicely presented with lots of jam, butter and cream. Unfortunately, however, the presentation turned out to be the only good thing about them. The cream was of the scooshie variety which very quickly dissolved into an insipid white liquid. The scones, meanwhile, although looking good, had been fashioned in the same way as the Great Map, from concrete. Definitely the worst scones we have had in a very very long time. If God had a hand in their preparation he was definitely trying to tell us something.

When it came to paying our bill, we suggested that, if they had any more of these scones, they should put them in the bin. Much to our embarrassment they took them off the bill. Embarrassment, because there wasn’t a trace of the scones left, we ate the lot. Such was our appetite after tramping all the way round Scotland in the snow!

Fit for purpose?

Embarrassment is obviously not something felt at Westminster, though goodness knows why not! For the first time ever in the three hundred odd years of the Parliament of Great Britain all Scottish MPs were banned from voting. The Parliament of Great Britain is now a very different place. The unelected House of Lords was also at it trying to rewrite the Act of Union. Presumably in an attempt to save it. The fact that they are even thinking about it is tantamount to an admission that the Union is no longer fit for purpose.

The 1707 Act of Union was gained through bribery, threats and the support of a tiny minority of Scots. The rest being vehemently opposed. It will be interesting to see what concoction they come up with this time in this wonderful democracy of ours. Whatever it is ’embarrassment’ will not be making an appearance. When it gets to the stage that both the Parliament of Great Britain and the Union is seen as broken perhaps the best course of action would be to just ditch both. Hard though that may be .. it probably wouldn’t be as hard as a Barony scone!

EH45 8QW tel: 01721 730395 Barony Castle Hotel

Scones, history and a dollop of politics