Hamish Macbeth-Death of a Village 2

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 26-May-25 this trackable had survived for 2.7 years and had been moved by 10 cachers, for an average drop every 97 days, or 3.8 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

In a series of mystery novels created by M. C. Beaton, Hamish Macbeth is the police constable of the small Scottish Highland town of Lochdubh. While Lochdubh and the neighboring town of Strathbane are fictional, the series is set in the real county of Sutherland and mentions the real Scottish towns of Dornoch, Dingwall and Inverness. Among the more than 30 books in the series is a colorful cast of recurring characters. If such can be said about tales of murder, the stories are presented in a more light-hearted manner than those of many modern authors. The books are not long, usually 100-200 pages. Or, if you listen to them as I do, they last 4-6 hours.

Macbeth is very well informed about his community's activities and often overlooks minor transgressions in the interest of public harmony. Following Highland tradition, as the eldest child, he remains unmarried because he is supporting his crofter parents and six much younger siblings. Still, he finds various ways to supplement his income, including poaching game. Many residents of Lochdubh consider Hamish a useless, lazy moocher. He has created a comfortable niche for himself in the community and is reluctant to change. On the police force, he uses his intelligence and skills to solve murders cases, while evading all efforts to transfer, promote or fire him from it.

Each trackable in this series is named for one of the Hamish Macbeth book titles. They were assembled in the United States but were either dipped or dropped by the owner at a geocaching event (Seeking Hamish Macbeth, GC9W3J3) in Inverness, Scotland. The glass item attached to the dog tag is a lampwork pendant incorporating foil and the ancient millefiori (thousand flowers) technique.

Lampworking is a type of glasswork that uses a torch to melt and shape glass. Once the glass is heated to a molten state, it is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. The term lampworking originated from when Venetian glassworkers used an oil lamp and foot bellows to heat their glass. Flameworking is a more modern take on the term. Present-day glass artists primarily work with an oxygen-propane torch. The creation of millefiori glass begins with the heating of a bundle of thin glass rods of different colors until they fuse. After that, the process gets more complicated, depending on the final form desired.