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Gabriella Bennett Quotes

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Famous Gabriella Bennett Quotes

“Perhaps we live in a wilder place than we give ourselves credit for. Scots tend to be hardy perennials. It's as if we've evolved to withstand the challenging nature of our own country. And what's more, we've worked out how to shape it into a force for good. Out of necessity our homes feature clever ways to keep the outside out and the inside warm. Scotland's oldest towerhouses were built with slits for windows not just as a defensive measure, but to protect residents from the elements. Out of problems came solutions, even beauty. Our foreparents thought to install open fires to heat their homes then toiled to make them easy on the eye. Intricately carved wooden fireplaces and elaborate hearths that referenced Scottish folklore followed.”

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Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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“We spend prolonged periods in pubs and restaurants after all, whiling away the hours with friends, waiting in vain for the weather to ease. Our homes become a natural extension of these convivial spaces: warm and open to guests. Spending so much time indoors with other people, perhaps over an alcoholic drink, encourages conversation, arguments and resolutions. It fills us up with more knowledge - or at least allows us to realise there are other opinions aside from our own.”

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Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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“Coorie has long been synonymous with nestling affectionately into a loved one, but only recently has it entered everyday parlance as a way to describe a scene. One equally warm and comforting where a cosy room lit by a flickering fire provides refuge from the banshee wind and horizontal rain outside.”

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Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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“The ideal coorie scene should reflect a balance of the outside and in. Bring to mind a day spent Munro-bagging or loch swimming, bookended by a bowl of something hot and nourishing as you dry off next to a heat source with a contended dog at your side. Don't forget smell: faint lanolin clinging to woollen blankets, cinnamon dissolving into porridge cooking slowly on the hob, the frosty pinch of winter air when you step into a Trossachs morning. If a King Creosote album is playing as you road trip across the humpbacked north-west Highlands then all the better. The more homegrown ingredients are added to the mix, the coorier life will be.”

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Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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“For some, this idea was a shade too close to the lifestyles our Nordic cousins. Hygge and lagom, the Danish and Swedish movements of living well. But while these movements laid the groundwork for a similar trend to emerge in Scotland, coorie has some obvious differences. Where hygge is concerned with the pursuit of happiness through candles, coffee and togetherness, coorie seeks to make the most of what comes from Scotland to feel satisfied. Lagom is the art of balancing frugality and fairness to create a balanced existence. Coorie takes into account being kind to the earth and our wallets, but can also extend to premium experiences once in a while. Crucially, neither of these Scandinavian lifestyle approaches took their starting point from what is dug out of the earth. Coorie is more than simply being cosy. Sure, it is linked, but more importantly it focuses on working out how to be in tune with our surroundings to evoke that feeling.”

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Book:The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
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