St. Andrew's Day? Yer Aye learnin'

Happy St. Andrew's Day to you! 

The 30th November is St. Andrew’s Day in Scotland and I've blogged about various stories about St. Andrew on previous posts. (To see them use the 'archive' box on the right sidebar of this blog and type a search of 'St. Andrew') 

I'm not repeating those posts but I will add something new because there is always yet another snippet associated with St. Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland. I find something different every year! 

This year's browsing led me to a new observation, one which I find extremely modern yet flattering to Andrew of saintly reputation! The Scotland dot org site has an article which suggests that St. Andrew had exceptional people skills -  as in him being the person who brought many strangers to the meetings of Jesus and also one of the disciples who was very good at coercing the people around Jesus to share their food! Someone very good at 'working the crowds'. Thus, the suggestion is that he could become the Patron Saint of Social Networking! 

St. Andrew's patronage extends to maidens, old maids, and women wishing to become mothers as well as those with gout, sore throats and are fishmongers!

Today, you'll find that I've also posted on the Wranglers Blog about St. Andrew's day where there's a little more explanation. Since I researched for a really good painting I'm including this one here. I like this 17th Century depiction of the Crucifixion of St. Andrew by someone anonymous. The canvas (I believe) can still be found in the Scottish College in Paris.

Though not religious, I find the imagery of this one interesting and in the way of a lot of medieval and renaissance painting historically inaccurate. The buildings in Patras, the city where St. Andrew was said to have been crucified might have had stone buildings. I'm not sure that the style here is accurate but the type of ship in the background is probably not accurate for AD 60. It doesn't look like a trireme to me but I'm happy to be put right. Exactly how the poor man is managing to hang there with such loose ties is quite an amazing feat. Again, please feel free to enlighten me.

Paintings aside, in honour of St. Andrew's Day 2016, I'm intending to make some stovies for dinner, served with oatcakes and beetroot. 

HERE  is the source of the photo above and using corned beef is one of the fastest recipes for making stovies. The texture of the stovies in the photo here is not actually the easiest thing to acquire but the real taste needs the whole stew to become a sort of mush to qualify!  Today, I'm using sausages instead of left over beef which is usual in the north-east of Scotland, though I've made stovies with lamb, mince and pretty much any kind of meat. 

Nicola Sturgeon, the first Minister of Scotland has made a St. Andrew's Day video, one which matches very well with the aspirations of the SNP party in Scotland, as in one of inclusion but sadly, I can't work out how to share it here except by this method.

https://www.facebook.com/TheScottishGovernment/videos/1147266865328157/

Other news of the day is that I'm pacing on with my #FLHadrian course.

1.    Those who are friends of mine on Facebook might have seen that I’ve made a few mentions about doing a 6 week course right now, via Newcastle University…and I’m loving it! I'm now into Week 4 of the course and so glad that I decided to do it!

I thought I already knew a reasonable amount about the famous Hadrian’s Wall structure that was built by the Ancient Romans from west to east across northern England but I live with the adage that ‘Yer Aye Learnin’ and there’s always something more to absorb.

The time period of the building of the wall at c. AD 122 sits nicely between the two eras that I’ve written about in my historical adventures. The Celtic Fervour Series for adults is set in Agricolan northern Britannia of AD 70s - 80s. My Time Travel Adventure for Teens is set in Severan Scotland in AD 210. Bridging that historical gap is a very good thing!

So again, Happy St. Andrew's Day to you. 
Slàinthe!