A nice thing to happen at the end of the year: music critic Kate Molleson, who writes for the Guardian as well as the Herald, has mentioned me at the start of her round-up of the year’s musical highlights in Scotland.

It brought back good memories of my series with Erich Hoebarth, during which we also found time to walk through the splendid Hermitage at Dunkeld (as Mendelssohn once did), to visit the ancient Birnam Oaks (see photo) mentioned by Shakespeare, to watch herons in the River Tay, and to sample some Scottish beer. All this and Mozart too.