Delightful to see such a happy couple wed, and for them to be surrounded by such a lovely welcoming bunch of friends and family. Thanks Mike and Ali for inviting us, it was a privilege and a joy!
Left Hope Cove yesterday suffused by a warm fuzzy feeling – and I am not talking about the hangover either!
Today in the Guardian, Bella Bathurst concludes:
“In all the different Scotlands, one image always recurs: that of a marriage. Just for the sake of it, let’s pretend that there’s this couple, Albion and Caledonia. They’ve been married for a long time – more than 300 years – and it’s been a productive but troubled relationship. Albion is happy with things as they are, but Caledonia wants to leave. Albion flirts with other countries and Caledonia feels bullied. When Caledonia threatens to walk out, Albion reminds her of all the things she’ll lose: the house, furniture, money, security, music, pictures. Which only makes Caledonia more determined to go. Her blood is up, she’s made plans, she’s sure she’ll get by somehow. All of us – English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, whether we have a vote in the referendum or not – get to be counsellors on this. So what chance would you give them?”
I had to read this three times to believe that this national newspaper would characterise the vote in Scotland on Independence like this. Smacks of petulance, not a respect for democracy.
There is little else to say other than, the perfect photo is nothing more than composition, timing and subject. Jean nails it here IMHO.
Interesting morning working with the firm who have produced the branding and website for ACT getting to grips with managing content on the website. We’ve some really whizzy mapping functionality which even gets GPS coordinates automatically as well as a great front end editing system. These were the guys who recommended Elastic Email and they have created a great end-to-end experience!
We’re delighted to confirm that we can take Credit Cards and Debit Cards on any of our ScottishLaird.com websites now as we have just implemented Secure Sockets Layer and HTTPS, enabling 128-bit encryption for all transactions. No longer is Paypal our only means of taking payment – which is great because it means transactions will now become less complicated and more frictionless. The picture (inset) is our security certificate from Comodo and covers both the general ScottishLaird.com site, but all of our Redemption sites for Groupon certificates.
And the featured image? The lock on our browser when the checkout page is reached!
The Development Trust board was thinking about how to leverage the hours and hours of voluntary time that it puts into the organisation. The first problem is how to record that time. The answer, of course, is to use the timesheets that Sara has developed for the CCF project. Of course, we are all slightly wary of recording the hours we put in because there might be too many … but too many at least means more match-funding, no? I think we win either way!
There are lots of events coming up related to CGDT’s activities, including our AGM on the 20th July (1400hrs), a consultation on Community Wind Turbines on 28th May (1900hrs) and a meeting about our progress on Community Broadband on 15th May (1800hrs). There’ll be a newsletter coming out soon as well.
Much discussion over the next stage of the work pending the consultation responses from Historic Scotland, Argyll and Bute Council, the Community Council, Development Trust and of course our Lairds and Ladies. During the afternoon we discussed the possible reasons for the round tops to the eight stanchions on the bridge (which you see in every photo of the structure). Robin, our architect, and author of the Conservation Plan (available here) thinks that they might have been designed to have obelisks or turrets atop. He made this quick, very rough sketch to outline the idea and I had to share it with you. Of course the reality is that it is unlikely they were ever built, and if they were they were taken down for good reason. More research may reveal the real intent.
After 5 hours of working through our plans we called it a day, or at least that was the intention – instead, Sadie launched into TWTC work and I, for my sins, went off for a three hour meeting with the Development Trust. It really doesn’t stop!
Laird Andrew Kerensky was the first of our Lairds and Ladies to acquire his copy of the Conservation Plan, and he has this to say about it:
Hello Dunans Castle – Home of the Scottish Laird Project I have received my digital copy of the Dunans Restoration project book thank you. It is a fascinating read… it is very well written and incredibly insightful into the work going on thus far. I’m amazed that you are allowing us one footers an opportunity to contribute some opinions and thoughts into your wonderful project. Thanks for this!
Of course we are delighted, and to whet your appetite even further, we have included the introductory spread of the book as the featured image on this post.
To celebrate that Spring really may finally have sprung, three photos. The first two are very much about the grounds. The narcissi come up every year and are a delight – banks of them in front and behind and around the castle. The primroses seem to have had an excellent year this year and are now present on both approaches to the bridge. Perhaps this explosion is to do with the significantly warmer winter we had this year, and perhaps this explains Barty the basset hound’s sprightliness – I haven’t seen him move this quickly, ever. So quick was he I nearly didn’t capture him fully – as it is his head is blurred. Barty the Ballistic Bassett perhaps?
If you want to meet Barty, see the beautiful grounds, and hear about the progress of the restoration, book a tour now at help@scottishlaird.com (we run tours Mon-Weds-Fri at 12 noon, April-October) £2.50 p/p, free for Lairds and Ladies!
So Scottishlaird.com has over 11,000 subscribers divided into three separate lists, and frankly we were growing tired of an ever-inflating monthly charge from our old supplier – a rather overgrown simian. Now, don’t get me wrong the service was excellent, the templates great and creating an html email a breeze to put together and design, but the cost was ridiculous.
So yesterday, in email dialogue with Julie from ACT around the mailing list for that charity, the contractor recommended Elastic Email. So me having the technicals, I gave the system a once over. So impressed was I, that I have converted our entire list to Elastic Email and dumped Mailchimp back down to the free account.
Why keep the free gorilla account? The wonderful integration between it and my e-commerce software – we’ll be using it to collect subscribers and then transfer them over to EE. Security-wise we’re fine, given that both companies are at the top of their game, but it is a bind to have to migrate users over ….
The only word of caution I’d give, is that EE isn’t quite as user-friendly as MC – but then I *think* that’s what you’d be paying extra for with when you go ape!
(… and all of this rather explains why there has been a hiatus on the email newsletter front with Scottish Laird – sorry!)
