The Echo Observer

The Spirit of Speyside is a local festival; in its essence a celebration of our local drink, culture and the tradition. This festival is as much for tourists as it is for the locals. This article is introductory to the Spirit of Speyside. This image is from the Spirit of Speyside Facebook page The whisky festival will be hosting a numerous amount of activities, stalls and events from; a pop-up crafts stall which is to be orchestrated by a lovely local lady and her friends (who are renting the shop for a few days from the owner) to an event at the Cooperage where there will be four highly skilled Coopers building a 190litre barrel in the fastest time possible. Here is the link for more information on the Guinness World record attempt at the Cooperage. Many videos have been created called The Faces of The Festival and can be found on this link for the Spirit of Speyside Facebook Page. These videos show some of the important people who are part of/contributing to the festiva...

Article by Jane Stone Food; is it something we take for granted, something we expect to have because of it being vital to living? I'm sure a lot of people remember the 'saying waste not want not' or 'children in poor countries would love to have a small portion of what you have, many of them don't even get that much'.                                                                    Picture from Moray FoodBank Facebook Page But we are missing what should be a problem being dealt with; that people from our country, one of the richest in the world has people homeless and hungry on our streets, some living in homes with no spare income for food. The food banks were introduced to help solve this problem; but surely the Food Bank should be a short term fix, helping people temporarily until they are able to supp...

Article by Jane Stone This Sidings cafe is located in two train cars which are leased; at the Dufftown Railway (which is run by volunteers, some of which are there 4 days a week to help keep this part of Scottish Heritage open). The two carriages used for the café were made roughly in 1950's; and through the commitment of volunteers, the upkeep has been maintained over the years.                                                                                         A little bit of History The train station in Dufftown has been there for a great deal of time, being re-opened to the public, operated entirely by volunteers, in 2000 and 2001. The Keith and Dufftown Railway is still driven by volunteers, their dedication and the public's support keeping the ...

This blog will en-devour to provide local stories, information on upcoming events, new business interviews and background information. The Moray area is full of history and the present is pretty busy at the moment to. With new developments with some of the distilleries to new businesses springing up and others disappearing.

I live outside of a small town about 24 miles from the coast, in the north-east of Scotland. Where the grass is painted green in the summer, drowned in the autumn and buried in the winter. The days are long in half of the year and the days seem to do whatever they want towards the end of the annual cycle. All in all where I live is pretty normal; children go to school during the day then hang out with their friends, the local clichés doing whatever they want to friend, foe or town. The weather is as unpredictable as the people, their emotions, daily lives and routines throwing everyone in their surrounding area off of their game. The town just down the road the town sits upon a hill, its outskirts surrounded by a variety of farms, green lichen filled forests, old crack packed roads, shiny Distilleries where the local economy seems to be driven and a small train station that many of the locals use on the weekend. There are small shops, cafes and restaurants within the town. A beaut...

Long distance relationships, whether your definition is 40 minutes down the road to half way around the world quite a lot of people have had one. You could argue that long distance relationships have increased over the years with the growth of technology and new innovative ways to keep in touch compared to the last century. Though within the last World War of which shook the planet where a large percentage of men were sent overseas away from their loved ones creating a long distance relationship, and for many the end of their relationships. Where telegraph and letter were used back then, they have since been outdated with the invention of email on the computer and mobile phones. Even newer inventions to being Skype and other online terminals for communication. Not to say that the letter being outdated means no one uses it, far from it many people share cards and letters with friends and loved ones on occasions such as birthdays or when they wish to keep communication special whe...