Strathspey Storywalks

29/10/2024

Only 3 spaces left on a special Samhain Stargazing Storywalk this Thursday! Gaelic stories in the stars, hot mulled apple juice, all the banter from 1,500 years ago, aurora not guaranteed.

👉 Tickets: https://booking.storywalks.scot/product/winter-stargazing-storywalk-thurs-31-oct-2024/

27/10/2024

Wee photo essay of how Highland hospitals were funded from the riches of empire, including the slave trade.

It begins to illustrate how much money was made elsewhere, on the backs of other people (including enslaved people), in places we colonised, and how we here may have benefitted from that for many hundreds of years.

Schools, and large parts of towns across the Highlands were funded this way too - I've focused on health for now.

Happy to accept any feedback or corrections, it's a work in progress...

👉 https://www.storywalks.scot/blog/highland-hospitals-built-from-the-riches-of-empire

22/10/2024

Zipped to Skye on Saturday for this event. We gathered in a sunny windblown Talla Bhreacais to hear Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation speak of their collective fight to oppose the Trans Mountain Pipeline extension - indigenous communities against massive corporations who continue to colonise and extract (in many cases without the proper permissions, ecological assessments etc) from land unceded to Canada.

The links to Scotland? Communities here continue to fight for the right to own, use and have a meaningful say in the face of the most concentrated private land ownership in Europe too (which in itself was a product of colonisation).

And, let's not forget that many of the so-called 'founding fathers' of what became Canada came from the Highlands and Islands - and the chain of events leads us to today, to indigenous communities continuing to fight for their right to exist.

(Also, the hereditary chief surname of George was put on Rueben's grandad in residential 'school', the boarding system which forcibly removed indigenous children from their families for generations, found to be cultural genocide in 2015. The Indian Residential School system was established under Glasgow-born John A Macdonald, first prime minister of so-called Canada, whose mother and whose wife both came from Dalnavert, just south of Aviemore.)

"Sing your songs and the rest will come."

A huge thank you to , & for organising, and of course to Michael Simpson and Reuben George. I look forward to reading the book!

And I highly recommend watching Yintah on Netflix atm, about the Wet'suwet'en lands of Unist'ot'en - also unceded to Canada - on which several new pipelines are meant to be built, despite the Wet'suwet'en Nation not giving permission. And the Canadian government arrests them and sends in the pipeline companies anyway. It gives a very good observational picture of the daily struggles against colonial violence.

20/10/2024

🌿 Coming up on Saturday! Hill to Grill in Nethy Bridge - lots of food and forest-related activities, and all free! See you there!

Posted • Cairngorms Connect Immerse yourself in the folklore and stories of the forest with Sarah from at this year's Hill to Grill ✨🌲

These storytelling walks are just one of the many free activities taking place through out the day.

From nature crafts to live music, woodworking to butchery, there is something for all ages and abilities.

🔗 Click the link in our profile to find out more, and don’t forget to RSVP on Facebook so we can make sure to have enough burgers for everyone!

[Image Description: A child stands in a forest wearing a large carved wooden deer mask with big antlers and large holes for their eyes. The photo is from Hill to Grill 2023, taken by ]
scot .scotland

18/10/2024

A walk into gold. This time of year always makes me think of the wonderful Matthew And The Atlas track Into Gold, for obvious reasons. I can't add the track here but I recommend looking it up 😊

17/10/2024

Thrilled and grateful to be featured as TGO Magazine's Creator of the Month! Wee piece includes Black Rocks in the Peak District (known to climbers galore), Mrs Tiggywinkle, reindeer herding, colonialism, and most importantly, putting stories back in the landscape where they belong - re-storying the land.

I love this work. It's so many things - fun, urgent, important, galvanising. Thank you to all of you who value and support it.

📷 Catriona Parmenter Photography, David Lintern Photography & my mum 😉

15/10/2024

Fireside tales, it's that time of year. And in a wee castle no less! The tree tea went down a treat, as did a couple of Gaelic songs. A late night, waxing moon lighting the whole landscape, deer and hares aplenty. Autumn feeling.

15/10/2024

🌿 Coming up next Saturday 26th! A genuine highlight of the year, and it's free. Tick 'going' on the Facebook event 👇 so they know how much food to do 😊

Immerse yourself in the folklore and stories of the forest with Sarah from Strathspey Storywalks at this year’s Hill to Grill: Local Forests and Local Food ✨🌲

These storytelling walks are just one of the many free activities taking place through out the day. From nature crafts to live music, woodworking to butchery, there is something for all ages and abilities.

📷 Sarah leading a storywalk through Dell Woods at Hill to Gill last year, photographed by Catriona Parmenter

13/10/2024

Ice patterns on the car when I went out for this morning's Storywalk. I love autumn.

12/10/2024

Anyone fancy an autumn stroll in the woods tomorrow morning? Spaces on the Aviemore Storywalk starting at 9.30am. Seasonal folklore and folktales, foraged tea included! 

🌿 Booking link in bio ☝️
   

11/10/2024

What a night last night, for the first Stargazing Storywalk of the season that hadn't been rained off, clouded off, etc!

What an absolute treat - of course the crummy phone photo doesn't do it justice - the whole of the sky was moving colour.

It's the first time I've experienced the aurora all over, 360 degrees, and first appearing in east and west (the photo looks east).

And it's also the first time I've never needed a head torch or lantern for the whole walk because it lit up the whole sky!

So wonderful, lifted all our spirits!

✨ I'm running Stargazing Storywalks most weeks until the end of March, sharing Scottish and Gaelic stories of the stars. The Samhain Stargazing only had a few spots left! Booking link in bio ☝️

07/10/2024

People who have been forcibly removed from their homes and land, for colonising and occupying forces to take their place, to push them to the margins, to do their utmost to destroy their spirit and their culture.

Which country am I talking about?

In solidarity over the last year. And the decades before that.

The safety of both Is and Ps are intertwined. Hoping for a time when people will be able to live safely on land their forebears have lived on for generations, and to be treated as humans, as equals.

06/10/2024

IT'S BACK! Always a highlight of the year - really looking forward to this year's Hill to Grill, a celebration of local forests and local food!

Join me, Aaron Sterritt Woodwork, Wooden Tom, The Wild Cooke Roots and Shoots Highland and others for a free day of family fun and food with Cairngorms Connect on Saturday 26th of October from 11am – 3 pm at Nethy Bridge Playing Fields.

👉 More info: https://cairngormsconnect.org.uk/hill-to-grill

❗Make sure you say you're going on the Cairngorms Connect Facebook event so they know how much food to do! https://fb.me/e/3MU7Exca6

📷 Catriona Parmenter Photography

05/10/2024

Glencoe again! More storytelling and also a fab BSL in the outdoors workshop with !

I've been learning BSL at work and really enjoying it so to expand my signing vocab to mountains, nature, seasons, etc. is so useful and just brilliant.

I'm also now the proud owner of a sign name woohoo! Thank you so much Morag 😊

03/10/2024

Stories of the Land this Sunday - tickets are half gone already so book now if you're keen!

Share in folktales from the Highlands and Pal est ine, both places where people have been forcibly removed from their homes and land.

The walk is part of Scottish International Storytelling Festival and will focus on connections, landscape, heritage, resistance and community, as we commemorate a year of the latest atrocities across Pal est ine and further afield too.

In English, with bits of Gaelic and Arabic. And includes fresh mint tea!

🌿 Tickets are free, book here: https://booking.storywalks.scot/product/sisf-stories-of-the-land-palestine-scotland-sun-6-oct-2024/


#حكايات #حكاية #غزة #فلسطين #

02/10/2024

Sunrise in a misty Aviemore. Sunset in a glorious Glencoe.

29/09/2024

This weekend I fulfilled a long-held wish to paddle on the Spey! Having walked up and down the river for years I had a yearning to see and feel the world from the water. It was so vastly different.

So the motley crew of pals and their two weans paddled from Aviemore to Boat - my first ever time canoeing! We were kept company by a couple of herons, migrating geese, dippers, mallards; the rowan trees were dripping in berries; the fly fishermen were not very impressed; we had a few hairy moments due to submerged rocks which may have put the children off another trip anytime soon...
..but I was sold within a couple of mins of being on the water. It was so quiet, and strangely warm, and it immediately shifts perspective, which I love. I'm slowly trying to get over my fear of water and this is a wonderful way to do it.

Huge thank you to & .kata.714 for their company and lend of the boat!

26/09/2024

Next week Scottish International Storytelling Festival begins - the largest storytelling festival of its kind in the world - and there are 2 events happening in Badenoch & Strathspey!

The theme for this year's festival is Bridges Between, as it's also the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

🌿 Stories of the Land: Folktales from Palestine & Scotland

🗓️ Sun 6 Oct
⏰ 10am-12pm
📍 Glenmore, near Aviemore

A Storywalk to the ruins of a cleared township, weaving Arabic and Gaelic through stories of community, landscape and heritage. We'll mark historical and ongoing injustice and the power of story to record, join together and hope. Includes freshly brewed mint tea!

👉 Free; link to book tickets: https://booking.storywalks.scot/product/sisf-stories-of-the-land-palestine-scotland-sun-6-oct-2024/ and donations gratefully received for Medical Aid for Palestinians and their ongoing work in Ga za and the Occu pied Terr it ories.

🎵 Storylands Session: Bridges Between

🗓️ Tues 8 Oct
⏰ 6-7pm and 8-10.15pm
📍Kincraig Church Hall

With special guest storyteller Gauri Raje (Silent Sounds), who connects folk tales, fairy tales, epics, and myths, with a focus on non-European traditions. She is currently collaborating with a Scottish musician on an innovative project connecting the Indian epic Mahabharata with Scottish rhythms and stories. Additionally, Gauri is releasing her book Cooking Tales, a collection of stories about Asian women in the 1950s and their innovations in recipes.

👉 £6-11; link to book tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/storylands-sessions-68806748143

The full Scottish International Storytelling Festival programme is well worth a look, plenty of online events too: https://sisf.online.red61.co.uk/

Images 1-3 credit: David Lintern Photography, with thanks.

#حكايات #حكاية #غزة #فلسطين #

VisitCairngorms Visit Aviemore Highland - Palestine Circus Artspace Muslim Hikers TRACS - Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland Highland Folk Museum

25/09/2024

Oh. Yes. Hello Snow! Heart leapt so much at seeing the whole of the Cairngorm tops adorned with white when coming back from Inverness in the setting sun that I actually whooped at the top of my lungs.

Accepting autumn in eagerly.

24/09/2024

✨ Stargazing Storywalks start again this week til the end of March! Still spaces on Thursday's wander - we'll explore the Gaelic names and stories behind the constellations, and I'll bring some foraged tea to keep us warm!

If the weather stops us going out (fully cloudy, blowing a hoolie, sideways snow, that kind of thing), you can either switch to a different date, I can add/change dates, or refund you.

Looking forward to another winter of stargazing! It's like greeting old friends in the sky with all the characters and their dramas...

✨ Book here: https://booking.storywalks.scot/
Visit Aviemore VisitCairngorms VisitScotland

20/09/2024

Yesterday was finally my first dip in Loch Vaa all year. Worth the wait. Beautiful light, treasures, place to myself.

16/09/2024

*A reminder* of the first Women of the Cairngorms Storywalk coming up this Sunday!

The circular walk from Feshiebridge shares stories of just some of the remarkable women who have shaped Badenoch & Strathspey, from 'lumberjills' to high society women to so-called 'witches' to adventurers to writers and poets.

Their marks may or may not be left in the land, but their impact and legacy stays with us regardless - it might just be a bit more hidden...

All welcome, suitable for wee ones too and includes foraged tea!

🌿 Book here: https://booking.storywalks.scot/product/cairngorms-women-sun-22-sept-2024/
Women's History Scotland VisitCairngorms Visit Aviemore

15/09/2024

Popped to Glasgow today to speak about my research into the role of Highlands men in forming Canada as a country... and decimating indigenous peoples in the process.

The discussion was at GalGael, which was something of a pilgrimage for me - I've known of their work for 20 years but never visited!

spoke about the ongoing struggle for recognition and survival of indigenous groups, including the Métis, and we discussed the ongoing impacts of the horrific Residential School system (which was forbidden to be taught in Canadian schools until 2015) and the Canadian Pacific Railway - both schemes largely begun by men from Scotland. We spoke of resistance, both then and now; how people fought what was being forced upon them to maintain their identity and culture.

And then we had a tour of the Galgael Garden and Ibrox Commons...
..and I left Glasgow in the last of the sun.

We have a wee informal group in Badenoch & Strathspey who meet monthly(ish) to learn and discuss these largely unknown histories of resistance. If you want to come along, drop me a line!

12/09/2024

🎉 Delighted to be part of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival this year, with the theme of Bridges Between.

Join me for a special Storywalk visiting the ruins of a cleared township in the Cairngorms to share folktales from Pales tine and the Highlands.

Weaving Arabic and Gaelic through stories of community, landscape and heritage, we'll mark historical and ongoing injustice and the power of story to record, join together and hope.

Includes freshly brewed mint tea!

The Storywalk is FREE but donations are gratefully received for Medical Aid for Palestinians and their ongoing work in Ga za and the Occu pied Terr it ories.

👉 Booking link: https://booking.storywalks.scot/product/sisf-stories-of-the-land-palestine-scotland-sun-6-oct-2024/

Image credit: David Lintern Photography, with thanks.


عربي #حكايات #حكاية #غزة #فلسطين #

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