Scotland Events October 2019

2019 Scotland Events highlights for the month of October include the Edinburgh Cocktail Festival, Enchanted Forest, Callander Jazz & Blues Festival, and Royal National Mod.

Edinburgh Antiques & Collectors Fair
31st August – 24th November 2019, Royal Highland Centre
Excellent selection of quality antique, vintage and retro wares. Jewellery, silver, clothing, accessories, furniture, ceramics, glass and more.

Wigtown Book Town Festival
27th September – 6th October 2019, Wigtown, Dumfries & Galloway
Known as Scotland’s national book town, Wigtown hosts the festival with over 250,000 books. a great chance to meet some of the country’s renowned writers.

Still Game
27th September – 13th October 2019, The SSE Hydro, Glasgow
Popular Scottish Comedy.

Ayrshire Real Ale Festival
3rd – 5th October 2019, Troon Concert Hall, South Beach, Troon
Showcasing over 150 real ales from around the UK, plus a range of real ciders and perry from around the country.

Ness Book Fest
3rd – 5th October 2019, Inverness
Events in Central Library, Town Hall, local schools, Waterstones Inverness, and more venues to be announced. Most events will be ticketed but free of charge to attend.

The Enchanted Forest
3rd October – 3rd November 2019, Pitlochry
Choreographic creation of dramatic light and sound performances. A night time spectacular set in Perthshire’s Big Tree Country.

Callander Jazz & Blues Festival
4th – 6th October 2019, Callander
Live jazz, blues, soul and boogie. From solo artists to big bands, over 200 musicians ensure a long weekend of great music in the autumn splendour of the Trossachs.

On Yer Bike
5th – 6th October 2019, Culzean Castle & Country Park
Bring your bike, trike or even unicycle for a weekend of pedal power! Explore the Country Park in a new way with our car free zones and bike themed activities.

Crieff and Strathearn Drovers Tryst
5th – 12th October, 2019
Walking festival run by volunteers and built around a programme of guided walks in the stunning scenery and autumn colours of Strathearn & surrounding areas of Perthshire.

Blairgowrie, Rattray & The Glens Book Festival
4th – 6th October 2019, Blairgowrie Community Campus
The aim of the festival is to foster and encourage a love of literature in all its forms by sharing our passion for reading and writing in a friendly environment.

Edinburgh Coffee Festival
5th October 2019, Edinburgh Corn Exchange.
We celebrate Scotland’s bustling and vibrant coffee scene, and it promises to be a must-see occasion for coffee enthusiasts from across the country.

Scotland’s Boat Show
11th – 13th October 2019, Kip Marina, Inverkip
View new and pre-owned boats for sale, plus onshore attractions and restaurant.

The Royal National Mod
11th – 19th October 2019, Glasgow
Ceud Mile Failte (One Hundred Thousand Welcomes)! The Royal National MOD, Scotland’s premier celebration of its Gaelic language. Relax with a ceilidh, concert, exhibition and a showcase of all things Gaelic.

Scottish Wedding Show
12th – 13th October 2019, SEC, Glasgow
For brides and grooms to be, with up to 300 of the UK’s leading wedding suppliers in attendance.

Halloween Pumpkin Trail
12th October – 3rd November 2019, Castle Kennedy Gardens, Dumfries & Galloway
Tread through the crispy autumn leaves and find the hidden pumpkins to receive a delicious treat.

St Andrews Golf Week
13th – 19th October 2019, St Andrews
Follow in the footsteps of the great and play not only the legendary Old Course but also the other excellent St Andrews courses.

Edinburgh Cocktail Week
14th – 20th October 2019, Edinburgh
A week-long programme of events & parties across the city, including a Cocktail Village at Festival Square on Lothian Road.

Scottish International Storytelling Festival
18th – 31st October 2019, Edinburgh
Enchanting performances, workshops, talks and events centred around traditional storytelling.

Edinburgh Short Film Festival
24th October – 10th November 2019, Edinburgh
We’re excited to bring a programme of outstanding short cinema, featuring 29 UK premieres & 32 award-winning short films!

Paisley Halloween Festival
25th – 26th October 2019, Paisley
Street theatre and death-defying aerial performers, plus a spectacular carnival-style Dark Circus parade.

Spirits of Scone Halloween
25th – 31st October 2019, Scone Palace, Perth
The nights are getting dark, and the grounds will be transformed into a truly terrifying playground for menacing ghouls and horror film freaks. They’re lurking in the woods and hiding in the maze; this is where your nightmares come to life!

Junior Halloween Howler
26th October 2019, Perth
A fun obstacle race for children (aged 6 – 12 years) in Perth City Centre. prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, fancy dress optional.

Edinburgh Horror Festival
26th October – 3rd November 2019, Edinburgh
Movie screenings, theatre, comedy, magic, spoken word, stalls and more.

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap
28th October – 2nd November 2019, Theatre Royal, Glasgow
The Mousetrap has kept people guessing for so long, becoming the longest running show of any kind in the history of theatre.

The Haunted Castle
30th – 31st October 2019, Culzean Castle & Country Park, Ayrshire
A malicious spirit treads the hallways of Culzean. Dare you enter the Haunted Castle this Halloween?

Samhuinn Fire Festival
31st October 2019, centre of Edinburgh
The Samhuinn celebration takes place on top of Calton Hill. The story follows the ideas of the overthrowing of Summer by Winter, with a stand-off between the Summer and Winter Kings.

Get here when you can.

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#HorseSunday: End of the Month Extravaganza

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#Caturday: End of the Month Extravaganza

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#PuppyFriday: End of the Month Extravaganza

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#BirdMonday

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#HorseSunday

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#Caturday

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#Caturday Reader: Cats Pay More Attention to Us Than We Realize

Every move you make, every cake you bake – I’ll be watching you…

Cats, long stereotyped as aloof and highly independent creatures compared to dogs, may be getting a bad rap.

Research recently published in the journal Animal Cognition posits that cats are quite in tune with their owners’ emotions, and respond to those emotions. The study, “Social referencing and cat–human communication,” details the results of an experiment conducted at Italy’s University of Milan with 24 cats and their owners to see what cats do with emotional information provided by their people.

According to the study, the first of its kind involving cats, researchers put each cat-owner pair in an unfamiliar room with an object sure to cause the cats some anxiety: a running fan with plastic ribbons attached to it. One group of owners provided positive reinforcement by talking in a happy voice while looking from the cat to the fan. The second group talked to their cats in a fearful voice while looking from the cat to the fan.

Researchers then assessed what they call “social referencing” in the cats, defined as “looking to the owner immediately before or after looking at the object.” The cats clearly participated in social referencing, with researchers concluding that 79 percent of the cats alternated between looking at their owner and the fan. The study found the cats even changed their behavior “to some extent” according to their owners’ emotional message.

Interestingly, the cats responded more overtly, in terms of looking at their owners, to the negative emotions than to the positive emotions. “Overall, cats in the negative group also showed a higher frequency in their interaction with the owner than cats in the positive group, potentially suggesting they were looking for security from their owner,” according to the study.

“Cats are social animals, but their sociality is defined ‘optional,’” says Isabella Merola, lead author of the study and the owner of two cats herself. “Cats usually decide when and with whom to interact.”

Merola notes that all of the cats in the study focused on their owners because they were in a strange situation. Even cats that usually ignored their people felt compelled to look to their owners for direction in that scenario, says Merola.

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#PuppyFriday

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Astronomy: Cassini’s Final Breathtaking Views of Saturn’s Moon Dione

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Above: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this parting view showing the rough and icy crescent of Saturn’s moon Dione following the spacecraft’s last close flyby of the moon on Aug. 17, 2015. Cassini obtained a similar crescent view in 2005. The earlier view has an image scale about four times higher, but does not show the moon’s full crescent as this view does.

Five visible light (clear spectral filter), narrow-angle camera images were combined to create this mosaic view. The scene is an orthographic projection centered on terrain at 0.4 degrees north latitude, 30.6 degrees west longitude on Dione. An orthographic view is most like the view seen by a distant observer looking through a telescope.

The view was acquired at distances ranging from approximately 37,000 miles (59,000 kilometers) to 47,000 miles (75,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 145 degrees. Image scale is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) per pixel.

North on Dione is up and rotated 34 degrees to the right.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Above: Dione hangs in front of Saturn and its icy rings in this view, captured during Cassini’s final close flyby of the icy moon. North on Dione is up. The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 17, 2015.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 45,000 miles (73,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Above: This view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn’s icy moon Dione, with giant Saturn and its rings in the background, just prior to the mission’s final close approach to the moon on August 17, 2015. At lower right is the large, multi-ringed impact basin named Evander, which is about 220 miles (350 kilometers) wide. The canyons of Padua Chasma, features that form part of Dione’s bright, wispy terrain, reach into the darkness at left.

Imaging scientists combined nine visible light (clear spectral filter) images to create this mosaic view: eight from the narrow-angle camera and one from the wide-angle camera, which fills in an area at lower left. The scene is an orthographic projection centered on terrain at 0.2 degrees north latitude, 179 degrees west longitude on Dione. North on Dione is up.

The view was acquired at distances ranging from approximately 106,000 miles (170,000 kilometers) to 39,000 miles (63,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. Image scale is about 1,500 feet (450 meters) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

On the Web:

Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and www.nasa.gov/cassini.

The Cassini imaging team homepage

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