A sign in an Edinburgh shop window set this Halloween apart: a newly registered tartan honouring the thousands persecuted under Scotland's Witchcraft Act. The women behind the campaign, the threads that carry the story, and where to spend your witching hour.

A festive reading of The Snowman and The Grinch in a 400-year-old Royal Mile tenement, the authors behind those stories, Scottish Ballet's Cinders! at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Zoo's fabulous Christmas lights, and the reading traditions worth starting at home — a storybook Christmas in Edinburgh.

Exploring Lasswade

A Dutch champion carried her own water to Carrbridge and took the Golden Spurtle — porridge tales from the Highlands, plus the best bowl I've ever eaten.

Eviction notices have landed at St Margaret's House, and around 150 artists are hunting for new homes — kitchen tables, waiting lists, and my not-so-crazy idea: buying up the old churches the Church of Scotland is selling.

Glasgow's Duke has worn a traffic cone since the 1980s, Edinburgh's students crown monuments 45 metres up, and David Hume's toe has been rubbed gold by exam-hopefuls. A love letter to Scotland's most public running joke.

Open since 1826, the Café Royal is marking 200 years with historical tasting menus, an anniversary lager and a charity whisky glass. Stained glass windows that starred in Chariots of Fire, a seafood tower, and a room so small you must book ahead — here's why it belongs on every guest's list.

Tesco Marketplace is selling an ultra-collectible Macallan Robert Burns Semiquincentenary — 250 bottles, two casks numbered 1759, a numbered Burns poem — for £8,799.95. Plus: the summer the Burns Monument filled with Auld Lang Syne in 27 languages, and a Burns nod that won't need a remortgage.

A sold-out fungi forage, a year-round foraging school, a Michelin-starred kitchen and a wine bar with a wild cider pop-up — how foraging became the root system under Edinburgh's whole food culture.

The Abbeyhill Colonies opened their doors for the Colony of Artists festival — here's who I met, what they make, and why each one belongs on your Christmas list this year.

Henderson Art Shop in Stockbridge is collecting photographs, paintings and drawings of the neighbourhood for its 2027 calendar. Entries close 8 October — here's how yours gets in.