#Not that we should go too far though- I think I even heard that Auchterarder had its own county at one point

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright ancient Scottish counties were already weird enough, but I strongly advise anyone who knows Scotland to go and look up the rules for what defined the old shire of Cromarty. 

Now I knew that Cromarty existed, but thought it confined to to the Black Isle or at least vaguely on the east coast north of Inverness- BOY WAS I WRONG. 

You see, Cromarty had a severe case of Enclaves. One of these enclaves included not only Ullapool (yes on the completely OPPOSITE side of Ross, on the west coast) but according to wikipedia one source even claimed that Royston/Caroline Park near Edinburgh was *technically* part of the shire of Cromarty. 

#I give up #Apparently when electing commissioners for the pre-1707 Scottish parliament it had to take turns with the county of Nairn #I do love our old counties and feel very strongly that Kinross should be re-erected into an independent shire #even if a substantial portion of the county is just Loch Leven #Kincardineshire too deserves its independence #And the whole concept of the 'Highland' council region is an administrative abomination #Don't even mention the phrase Dumfries and Galloway to me #Not that we should go too far though- I think I even heard that Auchterarder had its own county at one point #And given the Cromarty Enclaves I'm not sure that resurrecting it would be such a good idea either #By contrast Fife proudly wears its kingdom name on its sleeve #ANd to be fair you would be able to shut it in pretty well if bits of Perthshire didn't keep sneaking up on it round Abernethy #I realise these won't seem like large distances to Americans or Australians but there are lotsof folk in Edinburgh who've never been to Ross #Thoughts on the Thistle