Remind me what's good about living in Scotland?

[CoralPaperweight]

I moved to Scotland 25 years ago (central belt) and I've had a great life here but over the last year or so I've got increasingly itchy feet. May be a post-Covid or age thing but I'm not sure I want to stay in Scotland forever - it just doesn't seem to be as appealing to me, and even the cities seem a bit flat at the moment. Realistically, I can't disrupt DS education at the moment, he's very settled and happy so please remind me of everything that is fantastic about life in Scotland. I'm forever reading threads about people who are desperate to move to Scotland and I'm not really seeing why at the moment.

Oh, an utter bastard, yes. But a great poet.

Thanks for the link to the Sair finger - I'll get DS to learn this for next year's recital.

@darlingdodo 100 precent agreement. Don't forget there's also a fast-ish train line to Penrith etc if you only work in Edinburgh a few days a week. Damn it, I don't want a housing bubble to develop in the lakes!

We aren't moving as due to schooling for at least 5 years, also, as you say the vote for independence may go no again - agree they'll keep pushing.

OTOH I find staying on scotsnet and avoiding all 'Scottish nationalism is superior and inclusive unlike any other nationalism since the dawn of time' tweets relaxing.

I can offer about a hundred better Scots poems if you'd prefer, OP!

These poems are so fucking couthy. See also the hippopippopotamus sprauchling in the glaur; and the Jack and Jill one.

There are so many great Scottish poems I do not know how these get picked. Neither do I know anyone who speaks like that.

perhaps thats why I can appreciate Burns a bit more now I'm past my breeding years

I love Iain Crichton Smith's work. Consider the Lilies was on my CSYS curriculum and I've re-read it a few times since. The sheer sparseness of the descriptions adds to their content in quite a different way that Burns evokes the sights, feelings and atmosphere of his life and times. But what I like about Burns is that you can actually get a feeling of what it was like to have been alive and living there at that time.

Well, that's what I mean by a quick learn-by-rote, it's next to useless. Like speaking Martian and about as interesting for a child. You need to learn a bit about the history, context, you need an explanation of the words and that only is interesting if you love etymology and the roots of words and how they change ... I'm not sure if children automatically are interested in this type of thing, or if it's just needing to be taught a certain way.

I have been told by an English teacher that they tell all their students that they'll hate poetry by the time they're finished school. Which is a terrible shame.

@MagnoliaTaint thank you - I know there are loads better ones but my criteria are:
(a) DS has some understanding of what it's about
(b) it's short enough for him to remember

Some of the options from school were bizarre - some kids just chose the shortest one (even though they hadn't a clue what it was about - to be fair neither did I).

I studied literature a long long time ago and it breaks my heart how they turn kids off poetry when there is so much more accessible and fun stuff out there. DS is in primary and we got some fantastic poetry books by modern poets from the library ... but weren't by Scottish poets or written in Scots ...

Who does speak Scots as it is in these poems?

I have never known anyone who does.

Kids love Matt Mcginn songs.

There's a load of great, accessible, fun poetry from Scottish poets!

and lots of great resources out there ...

www.scotssangsfurschools.com/
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2021/01/sheena-blackhall-and-james-robertson-read-childrens-poems-in-scots/
www.scottishbooktrust.com/songs-and-rhymes

DS did that dug one, quite funny

Yes, we had Matthew Fitt in before, lots of fab resources out there.

Also, I must mention, people don't talk like Shakespeare anymore yet there's still merit in studying his work.

Also, I must mention, people don't talk like Shakespeare anymore yet there's still merit in studying his work.

Completely agree - the study of Scots is worthwhile for the fascinating history embedded in the language, and to see how it's changed ... well, maybe it's just me, I find the weirdness of obsolete words/language fascinating, anyway!

It's also interesting how arguments rage about Scots. Shows how language is held as deeply important to people, imo.

Can he do one verse of 'wee sleekit couring tim'rous beasti....' even if you don't understand the words you still get the gist. To a mouse or is it tae a moos

One thing that annoys me is that we are a pretty divided country, physically and culturally - think of Aberdeen oil workers/ Edinburgh artists/ SW dairy farmers/ western crofters etc - beggar all in common but we are expected to all be united and think fondly of Bonny prince chairlie - oh and to want to speak Gaelic - aye right!

I never knew my children would have to learn and receit a Scottish poem when they gets to primary school...... I mean as some with dyslexia that fills me with dread as a adult! Do they all have to do this out loud????

Oh yes, @Scottishskifun !

XH is English so we’d make him read them: so funny. Not that I can talk the Scots

We did 20 years ago, right from P1. We were in an area where no one really spoke Scots and knew what the poems meant 😂

Totally agree with you.

But people don’t pretend that people still talk Shakespearean

was going to make this point earlier - so grateful to my old Shakespeare zealot English teacher who made us study triple the number of Shakespeare plays that any of the other classes learned. didn't appreciate it at the time though, and mostly all went right over my head. Think something must have sunk in though - didn't put me off and I've had a lifelong love of literature.
Looking back i do feel a bit sad we never studied any Scots texts in English at high school, unless you count The Scottish Play😀
As other have said though the annual Burns Day poem has been a staple at primary school in Scotland since the year dot. I did it in the 70s, though i liked singing so got to sing a song instead (duncan gray, not very appropriate for a kid when i think about it😅). My siblings did it in the 60s too.

It’s interesting. I see the A9 now has Gaelic signs as though Gaelic has ever been the language of Dunkeld etc. It annoys me. It makes me feel like a stranger in my own home. Why can’t we just have road signs of the language used in the place where the signs are located? Gaelic - fine on the islands but not in Perthshire, and vice versa. Let’s appreciate Gaelic in all its glory in the place where it belongs, and English in the central belt.

I’m a bit confused to be honest. Plenty people I know speak in variations of Scots. I must be couthy…

I'm sorry but that is wrong. Highland Perthshire was largely Gaelic-speaking until around the First World War. There is a particular Gaelic dialect unique to Perthshire. There are Gaelic fantastic folktales recorded in the late 1800s too.