Today's blog is a bit of a challenge... Next week, there is an exhibition in Thurso Art Gallery (it's the back room of the library, for any people in the area who are are interested in going along!) entitled Caithness Connections . I've had a little sneak peek on social media and been amazed by the variety of ideas the artists have used to consider the theme. It set me thinking about how differently people see their home, and how greatly it differs to how other people see it. Caithness is not a well-explored area, either in tourism (although this has improved since the NC500 route became popular) or in the arts, as its near neighbour Orkney. This is not always a bad thing - the Orkney which exists now is a far cry from the one I knew as home in my childhood thanks to the insane amount of cruise ship traffic, but when you say Caithness to most people from outwith Northern Scotland, most of them have no idea where it is if they've even heard of it. A few years ago, I wro...
This week, I've been delving back into Ancient Rome, so this song was October's logical choice for a Horrible Histories blog. I'm so excited about the release of Alternate Endings , a collection of eight short stories from different historical writers. Each one (as the title suggests!) picked an event to change in history. Mine was the sparing of Vercingetorix's life. So Julius Caesar has been at the forefront of my mind! But Crassus was already dead by the time my story was set. In fact, his death triggered the collapse of that First Triumvirate. Unlike the later triumvirates, theirs was established solely to further their own ends individually. As the centuries turned, a certain hierarchy was established within each set of three, the geography reflecting this, but Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey were all as close to equal as they could be. Despite the appearance in the video, however, they all equally disliked one another. There was a circle of mistrust amongst them and...