It doesn't matter where I live, 'home' for me will always be Deeside, in Scotland. I took this snap this morning from the Old Brig o' Dee near Braemar, looking downriver. I took some photos of the brig too, but was disappointed as the sun was just in the wrong place for me. I'll have to go back and do it again, but just hope the weather holds - it's much prettier with a blue sky. I'd forgotten just how short the days are in January!
@lucypics You'd be surprised Lucy, I haven't lived in Scotland since 1998, but I still have a fairly strong Scottish accent! It gets stronger when I'm over here too, so the kids tell me!
@gamelee@ziggy77@juliedduncan@egad@gailmmeek Thanks folks. Sometimes you just have to take time to enjoy what's around you. I pass this river all the time when I'm home and often just take it for granted. But it is a really beautiful valley.
Lovely scene. We leave a piece of ourselves in all of our homes, I think. Sometimes it's tough to know where home is, but truly it is where your heart is. Where the love is.
@jessca646@carolyns@cazann It is gorgeous, but the weather is not so gorgeous! It looks like that day was the only day of nice weather I'm going to see in my week here. Ah well!
A beautiful photograph taken in a very beautiful country, and a fav for me. Doesn't Deeside figure in a song about Baron Brackley? I think it's on one of my Jean Redpath CDs--she is a big favourite of mine.
@tristansmum Stephanie, thank you so much for your comment, and your Fav. I googled this song, as I didn't know it. Very interesting though - this is what I learned .... It is a ballad based on an alleged real-life feud between John Gordon of Brackley and John Farquharson of Inverey, Braemar, whose cattle were impounded by Gordon in 1666. Braemar is the village where my father lives, and is 17 miles from our home here in Deeside. I must ask dad if he knows the song - he is very much into local history. :-)
@jamibann It will be interesting to find out if your dad knows it. I believe I've read somewhere that there have always been differing views on who exactly was at fault in these events. The version I have on a Jean Redpath CD definitely takes the view that Inverey was the villain.
@tristansmum Dad and I found a book (Legends o' The Braes o' Mar) which talks about this murder.
However it says ...'It is currently reported that in 1590 the Baron of Brachlie was killed by Colonel John Farquharson of Inverey, and so forth, although the Colonel was not born in 1590, nor his father before him. ... There is in the whole tale a confusion of dates and circumstances. ... The Clan Chattan, joined perhaps by the Grants and Lamonts of Inverey, were the people who killed the Baron of Brachlie and the other gentlemen of Glen Muick.'
So hard to get to the real truth of something that happened so long ago - but it seems that the Inverey men were indeed the 'baddies'!
Many thanks to you and your Dad for looking this up and to you for reporting on it. It shows how at least some of the old ballads are mish-mashes of "facts" from various times and generations which get woven together over time to make the story told in the ballad. The song as I know it is a good story, though a sad and gory one--like a number of other old ballads, There are also, in the version I know, some parts which report that Brackley's (Brachlie's) wife was overjoyed that Inverey had murdered her husband, and "laughed with him. danced with him, welcomed him in--she was kind to the villain that had slain her good man" --another interesting addition to the plot. Thanks again, this is so interesting to me.
January 19th, 2014
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However it says ...'It is currently reported that in 1590 the Baron of Brachlie was killed by Colonel John Farquharson of Inverey, and so forth, although the Colonel was not born in 1590, nor his father before him. ... There is in the whole tale a confusion of dates and circumstances. ... The Clan Chattan, joined perhaps by the Grants and Lamonts of Inverey, were the people who killed the Baron of Brachlie and the other gentlemen of Glen Muick.'
So hard to get to the real truth of something that happened so long ago - but it seems that the Inverey men were indeed the 'baddies'!