Another Scottish word I’ve learned on my travels is smirs, which was taught to me by Dawn Brown (who also introduced me to some jolly good home baking). According to the dictionary, smir (or smirs, or even smirrs) is a form of light drizzle. Dawn tells me ‘it’s down from dreich, but up from scotch mist’.

It was smirring when we visited Crichton Castle. After it had smirred, the sun came out for us at Melrose Abbey.