Carin B. Logan - My Trolls

My Trolls - Troll diary

2015 // 2016 // 2017 // 2018 // 2019 // 2020

This was 2020!

What to remember from 2020? Well, one thing immediately comes to mind. It's the year face masks became a not so fashionable item. To be honest, it's difficult finding a suitable face mask for the trolls, especially since they insist on wearing it correctly. So the nose has to be covered. But they wear one when necessary. Even when it makes them look ridiculous. They've been careful and my bunch of trolls are still COVID-free. Big bubble, and a very responsible one.

Scotty recovered somewhat and actually found the brains to turn one of her chapters into an article. Six months later and still no reply. It was going to take three months. I guess they don't know Scotty is not the most patient of trolls.
So Scotty made lots of walks. Her boots managed to do one walk 63 times in 2020: the local walk of about one hour forty minutes. It includes a mill, an old (converted) monastery with adjoining man-made cave where Scotty never fails to meet the man maintaining the site... whatever the hour. Be it at 7.30 in the morning, noon, or 5 in the afternoon, Scotty and dog will always meet the man.

One lucky troll managed to go to Glen Orchy in 2020.
Now Nik is a bit of an expert on Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, so he visited Druim Liart and the Dalmally Monument (first two pictures). Apart from that, he made other walks with his dog Spurtle.

Carin B. Logan has also been busy. After painstakingly trying to put all the pieces together and writing it down in her notebook, she spent the end of the year (and the start of 2021) writing her next novel: A Song of Homeland. Not finished; not one of her best ones either (one has to be honest), but it needed to be written.

Finally, my trolls had one big Christmas celebration together. By now, they are a bunch of twenty-nine trolls. And they get along fine. Hip hip slainté.

This was 2019!

Now let's keep it simple for 2019. It was a hell of a year. Lots of plans, but only one thing got done: the house renovation. It was enough. Oh, right, the dog was trained too. Sort of. Sort of a lot.

But fair is fair, due to all that, one thing was kind of forgotten and not very much celebrated. Maybe they had a wee dram on that. But it got kind of lost in the dust of everything else.
But here it is in full: Scotty MacGregor can now call herself a Master of Letters... With Distinction. The dissertation was a success, even if Scotty was rather disappointed her third chapter was not as good as the first two. But Scotty, hush, you have an MLitt in History of the Highlands and Islands. Be proud of it.

This was 2018!

To put it simply: 2018 was dominated by one single header - STUDIES. Everything had to make way for Scotty and her MLitt, or at least, every single activity encompassed Scotty's studies.

The year started with a decent mark for the one final assignment of 2017. Discussing how Britain has had a trying relationship with Europe from the very start was rewarded with a very decent score for all the hard work. Then there was the last module to wrestle with and it turned out a challenging one. Debating about how to debate oral history... It's not easy. Scotty is much more a get-on-with-it troll. But she struggled her way through it, following which she could fully focus on her biggest challenge yet: the dissertation. She wanted to do something with Glen Orchy and finally settled on Glen Orchy's most famous bard: a certain Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir (aka Duncan Ban MacIntyre). Tremendous fun, reading his poetry and that of his peers, and also... It allowed for diving into the Breadalbane Muniments, a gigantic archive shelved in the National Records of Scotland, where she spent several days going through hundreds of documents, trying to find anything remotely relevant to the elusive Donnchadh Bàn.
Needless to say that - given the "speedy" writer she is - there was the necessary stress, but all in all, the dissertation schedule was reasonably respected, so she handed in her bundle of joy just before Christmas. We'll keep you posted on the result.

All trolls postponed most of their plans, so Scotty could have the calm she needed to write her dissertation. No gardening activities this year, or at least, none that amounted to much. The harvest of courgettes failed, like the carrots. Really, not a single carrot. The Happy Couple took care of the redcurrents this year. With the long and ridiculously hot summer, there were raspberries until November.

There was a trip to Scotland again, but a lot was tied to Scotty's studies. So Edinburgh first (to visit the archives and the National Museum where the Pictish stones are hidden, aye, hidden, not displayed, but hidden!), and then up north, around Inverness, where Scotty's university is situated to collect books and meet university people...
There was some time for fun as well, though, and this year it were the Ellens, who were allowed to explore Scotland. Like several other trolls, they were very keen to discover plenty of Pictish stuff. Below you can see them at the Eagle Stone and at the site of two great Pictish hillforts: Craig Phadrig and Knock Farril.
And aye, they managed to climb a Munro as well: Ben Wyvis. Or did you think they weren't in for that either?

Oh, and one more thing. The Happy Couple decided to go for a dog all the same. Not a border terrier but a border collie. The black and white animal joined the family early September... and did briefly threaten to put Scotty's planning into disarray.
They settled on a nice Scottish name, satisfying all trolls: Islay. She's a handful, a challenge, a stubborn wee collie among two equally stubborn trolls, so there you go. A work in progress.
Also, one half of the Happy Couple ordered a new jigsaw puzzle with exactly two main features: sky and green shrubbery. Sigh. Fine, there's the outline of a mountain range. But after ten days only about a fifth of the sky is done. Maybe it will be done by next Christmas, when the other half will choose a decent picture.

So that's 2018. What will 2019 bring?
Training a teenage dog.
Renovating the house...
Trying to write the sequel Carin is piecing together, and which will involve this lovely character.
And maybe planning some more studies for 2020. Or what did you expect?

This was 2017!

2017: a year of excitement, bummers, study stress and mixed successes, and a whole lot of love of course.

Scotty is still studying, devouring books and articles, some of which you can see on the picture to the right.
So far she's found out a couple of things:
1/ She's a VERY SLOW writer. It doesn't matter how many assignments she's written so far, filling a page with academic speech (occasionally also blether or gobbledygook) takes time, a lot of it.
2/ There's always the necessary amount of stress (whether healthy or unhealthy) to start any assignment and the mandatory panic once it's turned in.
3/ That doesn't get any better on noticing that some assignments go horribly wrong and some surprisingly well. That is to say, writing about a "familiar" subject like the Lords of the Isles turned out to be a hard nut to crack. Handling primary sources went a lot better, as long as Scotty could speech about MacBeth or write about the GlenOrchy Campbells. Diving into 18th-century Gaelic poetry and discussing gender was by far the most successful (and fun) thing to do. It was also very revealing. Scotty kindly informed her friend Nic that although her name sounds rather rare nowadays, there were plenty of female poets called Nic.
One more assignment mark is still to be given in 2018, so please, keep those fingers crossed. Writing and reading about Britons was most illuminating, but very challenging indeed.
And if you are wondering what the picture on the left is all about... Scotty won a small prize ... in a book store. Always useful indeed.

In-between studying, there was also some work to be done in the garden. Some novelties with mixed successes, some disappointments and some reliefs. The raspberries were there for the picking again. Sorrel was very disappointing, but this time the courgettes did a lot better. And as you can see: a variety of yellow, round and white ones. Next year she's going to try to stick some in the ground instead of a pot.
Another HUGE success were the carrots, after last year's total failure. Look at these yummie ones.
Radishes - for some weird reason - fail to grow. I don't know why she still bothers.
The beetroots were a mixed success. But she got some.
New this year were the Physalis pubescens, yellow mini-tomatos. In fact she harvested too many for all the trolls to eat all by themselves. She also had mini-melons (but failed to take a picture).
The biggest bummer of the season, however, were the yellow peppers. Oh, aye, this picture looks very promising indeed, but that was the only success. Four plants, plenty of green peppers growing, but the harvest was exactly one. All the rest rotted before they were perfectly yellow. Scotty may have to put some extra care in these if she wants to try again. Maybe she'll have a wee bit more time...
As if...

A nice treat for Ilisa in 2017 was the annual release of the new Ardbeg bottle: Ardbeg Kelpie. Usually she has to miss it, but this year she was there, tasting the delicious Ardbeg whisky. She still has some work left in the cellar, but as the so many of the other trolls seem so busy, so she's taking it easy.

The biggest surprise was who was going on holiday this year. It was not Fitch (luckily he didn't seem to be too bothered), but Catriona or Ona for short. Maybe Fitch knew the weather wasn't going to be too grand and midges were still going to be plenty, because August isn't the trolls' usual holiday period. But Ona certainly made the most of it, as you can see from the pictures below. Rambling around Glen Orchy, Glen Coe, Fort William and Lismore, she even climbed a Munro: Stob Dubh (half of the Buchaille Etive Beg). Plenty of things to tell her friends back home.

No annual jigsaw puzzle this year, but the Happy Couple went out to see for a wee dog. But it turned out a lovely border terrier is still too big for their small place, and they are not quite ready anyway. So many other things to do, you see.
Apart from that, Carin is still brooding on a new adventure with Malcolm and Nic, and Nic may like it even less than before.
But all that will have to wait till at least 2019. Because 2018 has other things in store for the trolls.

There's one final module to start with and a dissertation to dominate the year. Scotty's still all panic as she would like to write about Glen Orchy, but needs to be sure she has enough sources to write about her favourite place.
Travel will be a bit further north this time, with Pictish stones and hopefully a Munro as well, but I'm sure you'll read all about that next year.
We'll just have to see what 2018 brings.

This was 2016!

2016: what an adventure again. The trolls had heighs and lows, ups and downs, painful feet that stubbornly walked anyway, a fair share of happiness, unexpected surprises, fulfilled expectations, and last but not least, someone is facing a steep learning curve.

But first things first. As indicated in the diary part of 2015, Carin B. Logan was already working on a new story. She managed to finish it a few months later, so there we have it: The Rampart Inside. Another addition to the list and the third part in the series of Malcolm and Nic. Something tells me she's not quite done with the lot of them, as something is already brewing in that brain of hers. But - as you will read below - a fourth story is not quite forthcoming, as certain other priorities have popped up this year.

What would a year be without the water of life? A dry one. But Ilisa had a rather quiet year in 2016 and despite the multitude of absolutely delicious bottles in the cellar, Ilisa drank whisky sparingly. No Sylvester, however, could be complete without a toast and a taste, so here she was enjoying the regular and the Cruach-Mhòna Bunnahabain.

Scotty got her hands dirty again this year. The redcurrents were a huge success, but the spring raspberries were not because of the disastrous wet weather. The autumn ones on the other hand, were rather plentiful again.

But that's about it as far as good news is concerned. The sorrel barely did a thing, the radishes failed, so did the beetroots, she harvested hardly any carrots, and the courgettes - despite the great start - failed one after the other after the first five. So all in all, 2016 wasn't great for farming Scotty.

While Scotty was minding her fruit and vegetables, Professor MacGregor had a field day, in fact several ones in a row. After a few years of reading up on ancient history and especially the Picts, she finally travelled to gaze at some of the Pictish stones up close and personal. Meigle, St Vigeans, the Dupplin Cross, Aberlemno, Dunfallandy - which she managed to see without the glass! - Eassie, Fowlis Wester, Logierait, the Meffin Institute with the Dunnichen Stone, St Orland's and the St Andrews Sarcophagus... She saw them all. To the left, Professor MacGregor with her favourite symbol: the Pictish beast. Below, the Professor after she went up and down the Black Caterthun, standing in front of the Drosten Stone, and the last one requires a wee bit of explanation.

Professor MacGregor loves rambling around the country, exploring things in great detail. Unfortunately her left foot does not always agree, so after wading through nettles, ploughing over a rough field, to finally admire the St Orland's stone - the one with the boat on! - she ended up with a very painful foot which needed some pampering. So there you go. Not all my trolls are like Nic, who effortlessly climb up and down any Munro.

Apart from rambling all over south-Pictish Scotland, the Professor was her busy self again, reading various books, and aye, your eyes are not deceiving you: Scotty MacGregor is on that picture as well. Aye, Mrs Pinball launched herself into a new adventure - which also explains why the monthly updates of the website have been postponed a wee bit. Scotty is finally going for that degree in Scottish history. Fully online, she is taking a History of the Highlands and Islands MLitt. It means a lot of reading - books and articles, and also giving an oral presentation, writing a book review and an essay. Trial and error, and a lot of concentration required (her forte!). Watch her devouring books and papers and scribbling down notes. She took just the one module in 2016, but the start of 2017 will see her endeavour TWO modules at once. Needless to say, all the other trolls are sheer support.

Last but not least, there's the Happy Couple. They ended the year like they started it: bent over a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. This time though, they managed to finish it in a good three days. So there they are, reminiscing on top of the ruins at Rothiemurchus. They had such a lovely walk there, among the pines, trying the East Highland way, and climbing over one too many stiles...

What will 2017 bring? A lot of studying and reading and writing history stuff, hopefully a more successfull growing season in the garden, Scotland in the summer and an attempt to climb the roof of Scotland - please, wish us dry and rather cool weather - and undoubtedly a lot of love. I'll keep you posted.

This was 2015!

What an eventful year it was, with highs of different height.

All trolls have been busy, but some more busy than others. So here's a wee peep in the lives of some of my trolls.

The year started with a party when the Happy Couple celebrated its twentieth anniversary. For more details, see below.

Absolutely none have been busier than Scotty MacGregor. Then again, nothing new there. She's always doing something, or at least planning to do something, and this year was no different. She had big plans with her vegetable garden bed. With mixed results, to be honest. Scotty planted radishes, carrots, beetroot, spring onions, basil (red and green), mint and sorrel. The first batch of radishes and carrots were a success, the second batch a disaster - as in, nothing was growing. The beetroots were delicious, the onions beat her in speed. The red basil grew fantastically, the green variant grew, but never matched its sister. The mint from seeds came too slow, so she bought a full plant. That did work. The sorrel was and is an ongoing success. The first harvest, though, was rather memorable. The leaves were fresh and thin and juvenile. So instead of properly mixing with the potatoes (sorrel potatoes), the leaves seemed to melt into a thin veil, dying the potatoes a bit green. The cook wasn't happy. Scotty doubled up laughing.
Apart from harvesting vegetables, there is the annual day of making absolutely delicious raspberry-redcurrant jam. It takes hours, because Scotty takes only the juice of the redcurrants and then adds the raspberries in full. Moreover, - just because Scotty's Scotty - she insists on using regular sugar instead of pectin. So that's a long time stirring the pot. The freezer was still full of the fruit, so we ended up with several kilos of jam. Enough for all of the trolls.

It wasn't all kitchen activity, because Scotty went to Scotland as well and she managed to tick one of each on her list: a Graham, a Corbett and a Munro. For more info on what they are, see my page on Munros.
So this year, she - and the Happy Couple - climbed Fiarach (652 m), Beinn Mhic Mhonaidh - aka Beinn Mhic Beast - (796 m) and Beinn Dorain (1076 m).
Fiarach was rather nice and a good starter of the climbing season.
Beinn Mhic Mhonaidh was vicious and mean. Hail, freezing temperatures, and rather unforgiving because we attempted to climb it from a steeper side. (Picture does not include panoramic vistas because Scotty simply blew over, so she posed in the snow instead.)
Beinn Dorain was very rewarding, but the Happy Couple was rather beaten at the end of the day. But most certainly no hail, rain or four seasons in one day. Sun, sun, sun (the one odd day in 2015.)

Scotty was not the only busy lizzy.

Professor MacGregor read a fair amount of books. The last one isn't quite finished, but she has a very good excuse for that - notably the other trolls.

Ilisa organised a few whisky tastings in 2015. The last one was on New Year's Eve, when she intended to compare a whole bunch of Ardbegs, but unfortunately (what's in a name), she gave up after two. The palate had enough after just a few.

The Happy Couple ended the year with a pleasant novelty. One half bought the other a jigsaw puzzle, showing a picture of their trip to Scotland. So instead of binge-watching on Sylvester, they spent half the day bent over the living room table. A success!

Of course, last but not least, there is Carin B. Logan herself. She had been jotting down notes all through the second half of the year, and started writing end of December. So stop the press: there's a new book coming. But not quite yet. She's not happy right now. She doesn't like the very ending of the book. Authors, difficult bunch. Sigh.

Oh, and one last thing. When they were on holiday, Scotty and the Happy Couple bumped into two new family members. So watch this page as they will be given a page some time in 2016. They are two lovely characters and have already appeared in my books before.

So what does 2016 hold in store?
More gardening, travelling, books, hopefully some history and whatever pleasantries come along.

Rabbie Burns Day 2015 - A Platinum Anniversary

Now wasn't it a great party: Rabbie Burns Day 2015! Every year it's a great get-together, because I'm sure I hear my trolls toasting and drinking and enjoying themselves well after we have long gone to bed. They do love a party. And Rabbie Burns Day is a perfect day for my Scottish trolls to remember Scotland's bard.
Of course, that's not the only thing my trolls celebrate. You see, the Happy Couple has their anniversary on Rabbie Burns Day. As you can see from the picture, it was a special anniversay this year: their twentieth.
Everyone was there, from timid Lena to boisterous Finn, Professor MacGregor and Professor Higgins, the entire family. The festivities were kicked off by a short speech (the Happy Couple is not much into speeches). But then the party really started. The bard and the Couple were toasted.
Bridget was all up for it and recited several poems of the great Robert Burns. Climbing into a rose bush, the first one obviously had to be "A Red, Red Rose" (see below).
Lena recited "To a Haggis" while Andrew cut this year's haggis.
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o' the Puddin-race!
I would have taken pictures of the haggis, but by the time I got there with my camera, they had all eaten it.
Everyone enthusiastically joined in "Farewell to the Highlands", even Malcolm.
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Bridget eventually recited the full poem of "Scotch Drink".
O Whisky! soul o' plays an' pranks! Accept a Bardie's grateful' thanks!
And there was plenty of that. Whisky was drunk in great quantities. And some had more than others. But it never gets out of hand. It's a friendly bunch.
Finn, Val, Scotty and Catriona danced on the bar, singing and chanting, until Catriona fell asleep next to the quaich of whisky. And even that didn't stop the others from happily partying on.
Len and Fitch were having a ball as well, emptying a fair few quaichs between the pair of them. Of course they honoured the bard too.
What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hodden grey, an' a' that? Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine - A man's a man for a' that!
In-between reciting, Carin made sure there was a nice tune to be played. Or did you really think my trolls didn't know the use of the iPod? I'm telling you, if I dare leave my iPod upstairs during the night, the battery's down in the morning.

It was a great party and it lasted until the early hours. When I found them in the morning, everything was back to normal, except for a red ribbon casually lying around the platinum Happy Couple. I do wonder what they did with that.

Hip, hip, hurray!

So, in full, Robert Burn's A Red, Red Rose.

My luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
My luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass?
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare-thee weel, my only luve,
And fare-thee-weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten-thousand mile.

PS If anyone wonders where Ron and Linda were, they were there, smooching and snogging. Just look more closely, they're there.