I sit down to tap out a blog post on a most historic day. Historic for a few reasons – more on which in a moment.

Apologies first, however, for the delay since my last post. I spent Wednesday to Friday in Edinburgh and Dundee, and I was in an uncreative mood (that’s what two nights in Dundee does for you, I suppose) so there are no photos to show off.

There are a few from Saturday, though, when I attended my first ever Flickr meet. Flickr’s very sociable and active Scotland group has a meet more or less monthly, and yesterday’s was Inverness, so I had no excuse not to go along.

It was nice to meet fellow Flickrites, but my crop of snaps from the day isn’t brilliant, to be honest, as I was very much on home turf and it was hard to see anything new in things and places I’ve seen a million times.

Anyway, history. We come to the end of a week when Obama came to power. Historic also for being Burns Day, and the start of the well-intentioned but seemingly under-promoted Year of Homecoming, which aims to celebrate some of the best of Scotland across the world, including the work of Robert Burns.

I’ve never been much of a Burns fan, more due to growing up in the Gàidhealtachd where his influence is less compared to the lowlands, than any disinterest on my part. But in today’s Sunday Herald (the only paper I bother buying), there was a pull-out with some of Burns’ poems, and it’s amazing how he commented on Scotland in ways in which we can recognise and need today. For instance, the sell-out by the Scottish Parliament of 1707 arouses sentiments in Burns that we should share today; while “To a Mouse” has environmental concerns that similarly resonate.

So perhaps I’ll read some more Burns at some point soon. If I get a spare five minutes…

Finally, and by far most importantly, it’s a historic day because it is the kick-off of season 5 of Lost, perhaps the greatest thing ever to appear on television.

It’s been too many months since season 4’s incredible cliff-hanger, and I have been desperate for this new season to arrive.

Is Locke really dead? Will the Oceanic Six return to the island? And where and how will they find it and its remaining inhabitants? Will the island’s mysteries ever be fully explained? As the long, winding plots seem to have some conclusions on the horizon, it will be great to see how things pan out.