St Andrews Day and what you should know about Bonnie Scotland

November 30th every year is St Andrew's Day. 

The flag of St Andrew, which is the flag of Scotland. 

It appears currently (November 2017) as part of the Union Jack.

The Russians also celebrate St Andrew. Here's the Russian flag in Edinburgh. Photo in Wikipedia by 

St Andrew's, where a relic of St Andrew was taken for the founding of the cathedral.

St Andrew's is near Edinburgh, on the east side of Scotland.

Glossary 

Scottish - English

aye - yes

bonnie - beautiful

loch - lake

nae (pronounced nay or neigh) - no

och - oh

Scottish (born in Scotland, of Scottish parentage, holding a Scottish passport)

Scotch (short for Scotch whisky)

Famous people from Scotland

Robbie Burns - poet, author of Auld L a n g Syne (See birthplace) (Spaces inserted to thwart automatic spell checker which prefers land).

Dr Livingston - explorer and missionary (discovered by American newspaper reporter who reputedly said, "Dr Livingston, I presume?" (See museum).

Sir Walter Scott - author (See grand home).

Edinburgh has a literary trail around the old town alleys on the hillside.

Major events:

St Andrew's Day (November 30th)

Hogmanay (New Year's Eve, Dec 31st)

Burns Night (January)

Features of Scottish culture:

Bagpipes, 

Dundee cake (heavy cake with fruit inside and nuts in pattern on top - buy it in UK supermarkets especially around Xmas time, 

haggis (meat dish made from a mixture of potatoes or vegetables with meat from entrails - if you don't ask you will enjoy it, 

kilts, 

tartans, 

salmon and smoked salmon, 

shortbread,

sporrans

wool - from sheep used in jumpers and clothes. Scottish wood shops all over the UK.

Scotch Egg

So-called Scotch egg is an inexpensive pub food all over England, boiled egg in the centre of a solid sausage meat / meatball of mixed meat and breadcrumbs, with a fried breadcrumb coating, finger food. 

Story About Teaching Asians About Scotland

Most of the above information is pretty obvious to anybody over the age of fifteen who lives in the UK. However, that does not apply to visitors or readers from other parts of the world. 

I recall teaching intermediate level English to a class at a private school in Singapore. We were practising sentences such as:

Scottish people come from Scotland. 

Irish people come from Ireland.

My students from Singapore, China, Malaysia and Indonesia were doing well. I was very happy with progress, until I received the sentence which was grammatically correct but geographically nonsense, "Scottish people grow rice in Scotland - is that right, Miss?"

My answer should have been: "The word Scottish is correct for people. The word Scotland is right to describe the country. However, they do not grow rice. They have lowland hills with grass and sheep providing meat and wool. The steep mountainside have Scottish pine trees."

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

See my other travel blog: http://luxurytravelforless.co.uk