Monthly Archives: December 2017

Warmest greetings of this festive season and best wishes for happiness in the New Year

 It’s now too late for us send out your last minute Christmas presents and time for us to go and spend a festive time with our families so all we can do here at James Pirie is to wish all of our valued customers a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year and in the words of Charles Dickens’s character Tiny Tim...

T’was Caviare to the General. –

But...Well Digested in the Scenes, Set Down with as Much Modesty as Cunning

Oh it is such a dreary night with Storm Caroline howling around the house as I type my blog  that upon the news that Scotland is to get its first caviar farm my thoughts first turn to Shakespeare’s broody plan Hamlet. But forsooth it is true, plans have been submitted for a caviar farm on Loch...

Trains Stopped by Rogue Trampoline –

True Story

Sung to the tune of the traditional sea shanty.

As we were a-travelling  from Glasgow at night
Hoping to buy our presents alright,

In the windy old weather, stormy old weather
When the wind blows we all pull together
When the wind blows we all pull together

We sighted a trampoline , blown out of the garden
Said "Now, you old skipper, our delays you...

Mackintosh’s Masterpiece -

Hill House Dissolving Like an Aspirin in a Glass of Water

It is the fault of that new fangled concrete, well it was new when Scotland’s design superstar  Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s  built his masterpiece Hill House on  a hill in the wet and windy west coast at Helensburgh and the climate have been attacking it since the very first day. As regular readers know I live...

Queensferry Teething Troubles –

New Bridge Already Need Repairs

Oh yes opened with a fanfare and closed with a whisper that’s what’s going to happen to the Queensferry Crossing and thousands of motorists face new delays after the government announced it would have to partially close while minor construction defects are fixed. Oh William Topaz McGonagall where are you when I need a handy bridge rhyme...

Countdown to Christmas -

And the Seven Deadly Gins

 Gin if you don’t know is the trendiest spirit on the planet, why almost every other day a new artisan gin distillery opens. And now to add to the temptations of this terrific and previously underrated drink come, Gin baubles and a gin advent calendar. Now when I heard gin advent and calendar all in the same breath I thought in a very old fashioned...

Christmas Decorations –

Where Did They Come from?

Well for those of you who like their Christmas to start early and finish late you’ll have got the advent calendar up, the Christmas tree on order and maybe a hamper on order. I don’t know if it is the rage now, but when I was a kid my mum started putting money in the Xmas club in the first week of January and we’d get the hamper about 3 days before...

Scottish Tequila –

Well I Never

Now if you are lucky enough to have a Mexican in the family or like their national brew you’ll be pleased to hear about Scottish tequila. We are lucky that my son is married to a lovely Mexican American lady, but she’s off the tequila at the moment with a new arrival in March. Now Scotland’s first tequila distillery has launched the world’s first whisky cask aged tequilas...

Diverted from Platform 9¾ -

Stranded Family Board Hogwarts Express.

A mother and father and their four children and their four young children were staying at a remote bothy in Lochaber when their canoe was swept away by a swollen river leaving them stranded some three miles from their base. So rather than clamber across boggy land, streams and hills the family decided to ask for advice from the local...

Snakes on a Plane! –

No Snake in a Van

I know an enormous number of people who have a fear of snakes, not just the venomous ones, but all the slithery things and lizards and toads and frogs too. That’s why whenever they offer you one of those animal encounters you should grab it with both hands for the nervous amongst your parties to get to grips with nature and particularly snakes. We took a whole...