No, not human brothers but polar bears!  The Highland Wildlife Park at Kingussie is celebrating  the first 'happy anniversary' of two polar bear brothers.  Arktos (5 years old) and Walker(4) have become inseperable since they were first brought together. The playful pair who are the UK's only polar bears on display, happily play, wrestle and swim together in their pond. Their close bond has been a welcome relief to staff at the park who were initially concerned that they would not get on together.. A member of staff at the park said recently that he had found the bears one evening 'sound asleep side by side, with their feet resting on the other bear, both confident in each other's company'.

A mile along the road from Hazelgrove is Boleskine House, the former home of Aleister Crowley, the self proclaimed 'most wicked man in the world'. He lived in the house from 1899 -1913 and during that time gained great notoriety as an occultist, alcoholic and prolific drug user. Anyway, I read with interest in a local newspaper that one of Crowley's unpublished poems is going under the hammer with the prospect of going for £2000.  The subject of the poem is in praise of drinking absinthe and is entitled The Green Hour. This is because the drink , hugely popular in the early part of the 20th century with those of a bohemian lifestyle, was often drunk between the hours of 5pm -7pm ! Popularily believed to encourage creativity, absinthe was nicknamed ' the grren fairy' or 'green muse'.