Goodbye Red

Today is the Memorial Service for a friend, as he lived in Arizona I will be unable to attend. I wish I could be there. Today I wore my MacDonald of Sleat as Craig's nick name was Retro Red, with a black shirt, black hose and red ties. When I came home I changed into a Red T-Shirt and Red Hose, just for Red. Here's to you Red you're missed already.

A nice compliment

Today I was out all day I wore the Royal Stewart by Barb Tewksbury, my Freelander sporran, Hawick Argyll top hose from Redshanks Scotland and my Stewart shirt from the Scottish Tartan Museum. I changed when I got home but had to go out again, as it was a hot day this evening I went out in the following outfit, my MacDonald of Sleat from Matt Newsome, Freelander sporran, Check top hose again from Hawick Hose co. and a white short sleeve shirt. I did not wear a belt this evening and find it's probably not needed in the summer months.


The other day I got a Private Message on XMarkstheScot from a new member basically saying it was my photos and blog that help build his interest in kilts. It was amazing to me that my blog was the main reason for someone else to start kilting. Anyway I asked him if I could share his message with my readers and he agreed. I was just so excited to see that someone felt that passionate about it. Anyway here are his comments:

It was your blog mainly, but also the 10 photos from casual to white tie layout, that kept building my interest in kilts. My father's family is Welsh, but my mother's family is mostly Scots with a little Irish. I always wanted a kilt, but never got one until they designed the Welsh family tartans. Once I had it, I wore it only to formal events, which wasn't nearly enough. I loved wearing it, and I hated to have such a wonderful garment that mostly sat around gathering dust. I added a Sport Kilt, which is great for the Alabama weather and for getting dirty, but it's nowhere near the same feeling as a nice heavy kilt. I have now added two more kilts, and I'm not ashamed now to say that I selected the tartans based 100% on fashion - I like wearing deep blues and greens, so I got a blue one and a green one, after agonizing for weeks over WHICH blue and WHICH green. I've worn the two new ones only once each, and I'm already looking at tartans (and tweeds) again!

I've noticed some things from everyone's pictures that I'm probably doing "wrong". By that I mean only "differently", really, because that's something else you have helped me see - there is no "wrong". I ordered the 5-yard kilts a little short because I apparently like the top of my kilts a little lower than most seem to. I also apparently like my hose a little higher than most, and I tend to leave more of the ends of the traditional garter ties exposed than most.

So... thanks for showing me the way!

Fergus 09

Andrew and me

Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series with me and the Saltire
Me out front of our clan tent


We went up to the Fergus Highland games this year to do the MacKinnon Clan tent, my wife (I still get butterflies when I say that.) is a MacKinnon and on the board of directors. This was my first time at a Clan Tent, I must say it is a different experience being in a clan tent. We decided to bake shortbread for the visitors to our tent, they were very well received.

We arrived Friday as we had weekend passes, however we were the only clan there at the time, and had to wait as the staff for the games were making last minute preparations. It was decided to go see Pete from Canadian Casual Kilts and Robert from RKilts. It was at this point that I scared Pete by coming into his booth when his back was turned, He turned faster than I've ever seen him move with a raised fist, when he realized who it was he dropped his hand and we both caught our breath.

Shortly after we made our way back over to the Avenue of the Clans or in this case the clan, on the way we stopped to watch some of the Heavy Events that were already underway.

Saturday we lined up for the march and there was some confusion as they decided to do the march in a reverse alphabetical order. As were standing in line we were hit with the smell of cigarette smoke, now for me this is nothing more than a minor annoyance, however Catherine suffers from asthma as such we were unable to do the clan march. I can not fathom how you are supposed to represent your clan while smoking, it is one thing to smoke outdoors, however smoking in a line when you know the smoke is drifting into others faces is something else entirely.

The rain was moving in and both Catherine and myself came down with migraine headaches, it was a good thing we left when we did as I had to stop half way home so that Catherine could take over driving, I could not do it any longer.