Scotland Unplugged

21/12/2025

Why Scotland cancelled Christmas (and how to make shortbread mince pies)

Ingredients
250g / 8.8oz Plain Flour
125g / 4.4oz Cornflour
250g / 8.8oz Butter
125g / 4.4oz Caster Sugar (super fine /bakers sugar)
Mincemeat filling

Method
Preheat oven to 150 c / 300 f .
Cream together the butter and caster sugar in a bowl.
Add the flour and cornflour and combine to form a dough. Use your hands to bring it together.
Lightly flour the surface and roll the dough. Cut into rounds and line the muffin tray with the dough.
Fill the dough with a spoonful of mincemeat and top with a smaller round making sure there is no gap.
Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until golden.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with caster sugar.
Allow the mince pies to cool slightly before removing from the tray.

14/12/2025

What The Hoof GP doesn't mention here is that on the day in question, when he told us he was starting a YouTube channel, James Parker Sculpture and I did what the three of us always do when talking to one another. We laughed. Were we ever wrong?!!

Proud of these two and I hope we always carry on the strong tradition of relentlessly winding each other up in person (and telling the truth when the others are out of earshot). 😂

Also, my head isn't actually that small... 😆

Which town, in which area, do you watch from?? I’d love to know!

On the day this photo was taken, I made a decision that could very easily have gone nowhere.

That was the day I told my brothers I was starting a YouTube channel. It probably sounded a bit whimsical — one of those ideas you say out loud and then quietly forget. I don’t think any of us, myself included, believed where it might lead. I certainly couldn’t have imagined the journey it’s taken me… and us — my family, and everyone reading this now on!

Since then, I’ve lived by a simple mindset: do more. Show up again. Learn a bit more. Try one more time. When I do more today than I did yesterday, momentum builds. Things start to move. Somehow, you find ways to provide for the people you love while adding something small to the lives of others.

The Hoof GP started as nothing more than an idea. It would have been easy to leave it there. One small decision has led to something I never could have planned.

I’m reflecting because I’ve just realised that in the last month alone, our videos have been watched 250,000,000 times.

Two hundred and fifty million. That still feels unreal.

Funny how moments that feel uncertain at the time can quietly become the turning points - I love hoof trimming, I love the process of creating videos and I love building The Herd, this incredible community.

If there’s something you’ve been sitting on — an idea, a pull, something you love — don’t underestimate it, don’t let the opportunity to start it, to go for it pass you by. Just do more. You honestlMrs HGPnJames Parker Sculpture Scotland Unplugged now.

Mrs HGP James Parker Sculpture Scotland Unplugged

12/12/2025

Can anyone find the missing pieces?

The Lewis Chesspieces were discovered in 1831, in the Parish of Uig on the Isle of Lewis. The pieces were mostly carved from walrus ivory (though some were fashioned from whale teeth) and they’re thought to date from between 1150 and 1200 AD.

The hoard may have made in Trondheim, Norway, then brought to the island by a merchant who buried it to avoid taxes. Other suggested origins include Iceland and the Hebrides.

Today, the British Museum has eighty-two pieces, the National Museum of Scotland has eleven, and in 2019 a piece sold to a private buyer for £735,000.

The warder piece had been kept in a drawer by an Edinburgh family, whose grandfather bought it in 1964 for £5.

With a four pieces still missing, it might be worth checking your attic…

10/12/2025

A massive thank you to everyone who has already bought a copy of Code Brown! We've been blown away by the response. There are only a few copies of the latest instalment in the The Hoof GP's story left, and the presale closes tonight. If you want a copy, you'll need to be quick. 🙂🐄📖

09/12/2025

Edinburgh's HIDDEN Streets - The Real Mary King's Close

The Real Mary King's Close

09/12/2025

I visited The Real Mary King's Close for an Underground Unlocked event last week, and saw the close come to life with characters from its history.

Check out the link below for a full video on Mary King’s Close.

The last Underground Unlocked event of the year is on Thursday the 11th of December.

08/12/2025

08/12/2025

Very happy to see Code Brown, the next instalment in The Hoof GP's story, go out into the world last night. I'm proud to have worked on this one with Graeme for 13 months (just don't tell him) and it feels good to see it made real. As always, it was a bumpy process, filled with laugh out loud moments and the inevitable self-doubt. But like the cover says, 'you win or you learn!' 😉

(Link below but you'll need to be quick. We don't have many copies!)

07/12/2025

Caerlaverock Castle and Clan Maxwell