Balloch born and bred.

**Woo** · 12th April 22, 11:31 AM

Greetings one and all,

I love to wear my kilt, especially now that I live in the Midwest of the USA. Also known as Wichita, Kansas. Many is the time. I have been asked, is there a parade today? This is due to the fact that the majority of folk in this neck of the woods only see kilts on particular days of the year. (Rarely on St Andrews Day) Or they might attend a local Ren Fayre.

There used to be a Scottish Festival a few miles North of Wichita in a smaller city called MacPherson. I do not know all of the details as to why it stopped, so I shall say no more, other than I for one, am sorry it is no more.

Many of the retailers from the Mac festival as it became known have now made the Great Plains Renaissance Festival their home. Sadly the purveyor of the Scottish Pies has yet to be seen at this latter event.

When the pandemic hit, acting upon the advice of my beloved, I started writing, thinking it was only for my eyes. Truth be known, I was struggling due to having a compromised immune system due to surgery in 2015 and was leaving the house for only an hour a week to go and pick up groceries. I am more than aware none of us get out of this place alive, but I wasn't quite yet willing to depart this mortal coil.

A friend called and asked what I was doing. I confessed I had been writing, and she asked to read my story. Against my better judgment, I sent her a copy. She, in turn, advised me I should send the story to a friend of hers who owns a publishing company. Again against my better judgment, I sent it. Expecting at best a 'thanks but no thanks.'

To my complete and utter surprise, the publisher liked the story, and even though my punctuation, according to him, is absolutely atrocious, he wanted to publish the story. Not knowing anything about publishing a book, I expected him to cut 90% of the story. Well, it turned out what I had sent him was enough for at least eight books. #1 was released in September of 2021. #2 in May or June and #3 in October. For the rest, I am trying to correct the punctuation through a wonderful tool called Grammarly, it hates me with a passion, and maybe one of these days, it will concede that Gaelic should not be changed to Garlic!

The gallant hero of the story is a young man born and bred in Scotland, Hamish MacGregor. His father moved the family to Northern England to find work. Hamish has no pretensions about his station in life. He is working-class and proud of it. Answering an ad in a regional newspaper, he meets the lady of his dreams. The story is of their life together and his vision of bringing back the old ways.

Where each and every member of the Clan reaches out and takes care of their people, no matter who they are. By no means are all the members of his adopted family Scottish, as he says in the story. "We have our own version of the United Nations going on." There are people from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, Brittany in France, Spain, India, China, Japan, Sweden, The USA, Russia, and last but not least, Chile.