Last updated 21:49, Wednesday, 16 April 2008

TARTAN Day has been and gone – not that you’d have noticed it.

It has been a widely-celebrated event for 17 years in countries where emigrant Scots have settled, countries like Canada and the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Scottish exiles are always keen to show pride in their heritage.

US presidential hopefuls, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have all endorsed the annual celebration of Scottish-American links and have thrown their weight behind the celebrations of National Tartan Day in America. There was a week of events culminating in the parade through the street of New York.

This celebration of our small nation has spread within Scotland itself over the past few years with Angus council establishing its first Tartan Day on home territory to make it an event celebrated as much at home as abroad.

This year eight Scottish councils held a week of events to showcase the nation’s creativity, innovation and heritage, its business, sporting and economic success, and its people. Angus, Dundee, Fife, Perth, and Kinross, Stirling, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire and West Lothian organised ceilidhs, concerts, music and drama, street entertainment, walks and tours.

And what did our region do? Nowt, by the look of it. Doesn’t Dumfries & Galloway want to celebrate its Scottishness?

ON the odd days when it isn’t chucking down rain and hail, you can feel spring in the air, albeit a gey cauld air. But the spring flowers are blooming and the birds singing. At least one mallard has been seen with a brood of ducklings. But each time the family is spotted, there’s one duckling fewer.

Mother mallard was seen at two different locations, one at the meeting of the waters and the other at George Street, putting up a fight against a marauding heron intent on picking up a duckling for its supper.

Sand martins were seen near Cargo on the Solway almost a fortnight ago. We’ll soon be watching for the return of the swallows and listening for the cuckoo. A bird not usually seen in this area was recently spotted in a Harelaw garden. The owner is sure it was a quail which is a scarce and declining summer visitor.

This is the month for these birds returning to Britain but their habitats are the middle and south of England as well as north-east Scotland with small numbers on the south side of the Solway. It would be nice to think they’d decided to settle down in our area.

AT last there seems to be a move to tighten up the laws governing littering and dog fouling. CCTV cameras are to be installed in places where people commit these crimes. Anyone seen throwing rubbish from a car window will receive a fine through the post.

You can do your bit to help keep our town bonny by being one of the volunteers on Sunday morning at the annual spring clean.

Margaret Pool, on her return from Australia, was telling me that Oz has an annual national clean-up day, given big publicity by the media.

Hundreds of people all over the country are out and about picking up rubbish. Maybe Scotland needs a national clean-up day as well as a Tartan Day. We can do our bit by turning up at the Kilngreen at 11am.