Rothesay Castle Next castle on the list involved catching a boat from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. I had visited Wemyss Bay earlier this year and had noted in part 153 of this blog that I had this trip on my list of things to do. The crossing took around thirty-five … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 185
Ardrossan Castle In complete contrast to the beautifully restored Dean Castle, the next one to visit on my list was Ardrossan Castle. To get there, you have to drive into town, and then take a side road and it’s situated on the outskirts on a hill, overlooking the Firth of Clyde. There is a small … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 184
Dean Castle Took a trip down the West Coast and managed to visit four castles in twenty-four hours, with a fifth on the way back the following day. I will blog about each one in turn, starting with the first on route, Dean Castle. Set in a country park in Kilmarnock, this 14th century castle … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 183
The Clydeside Distillery Took a trip through to Glasgow on Friday last week to visit the Clydeside Distillery. I started the day by taking some time to wander around Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I saw the Dali again as usual – see Part 139 of this blog – along with Van Gogh’s Portrait of … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 176
Piano Revisited Looking back through this blog I see that in Part 33 from February 2023, I noted, “…something on my bucket list is to play the piano for the public in a railway station. We have pianos in stations here for anyone to sit down at and entertain the public. I thought doing a … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 171
One Hundred Thousand Words A milestone has been reached in this blog series. After publishing I always cut and paste a copy of my latest post into a word document as another backup. That word document containing all the posts from Inside the Fiction Factory to date, now amounts to a little over a hundred … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 170
Ancient Egyptian Collection I make a point of visiting the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh a couple of times a month. It’s one of my favourite places and although I have only an hour for lunch, I manage to get around most of it during the year. There are always changes of course, … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 169
Tutankhamun My first encounter with Egyptian history was at the British Museum in London in 1972. I was a young lad then, and my father had taken me on my first trip to London to see the loan exhibition from the Department of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt to mark the 50th anniversary … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 166
Kinneil House I took a trip over to the Kinneil Estate in Bo’Ness over the weekend. I had no idea there was so much history dating over a period of 2,000 years on display here. There is a house, a museum, the Roman Antonine wall, renaissance wall paintings, James Watt’s Cottage, a Roman Fortlet, and … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 165
Monkeys I visited the Primate exhibition being hosted by the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. This originally opened back in 2016, but I didn’t manage to catch it then. It has since toured the world and is now back home until November this year. Entitled, Monkeys: Our Primate Family, there are more than fifty … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 164
The Fiction Factory 