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STARTING and running the Good News Scotland newsletter this year has been a rewarding exercise in reorientation.
Being cynical and pessimistic can be as natural to a journalist as the written word. Hell, it can often be a pretty key skill for the job.
I was also so used to doom scrolling the likes of toxic Twitter.
So, it has been a true pleasure to take a step back – even if just once a month – and take off the grey-tinted glasses.
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And whilst preparing this final newsletter of the year, it has genuinely been tough to pinpoint my top 6 of the year.
I’ll start with a good news story which will bear fruit in the new year – Scotland qualifying for next year’s World Cup.
The near entirety of Scotland celebrated that dramatic 4-2 win against Denmark on November 18.
It’s certainly still inked into my memory.
Perhaps the most bizarre positive news story from the year was how an entire Scottish village was invited to the Austrian capital by its tourism board in November.
Residents of Dull, in Perthshire, all received wax-sealed invitations from the Vienna tourist board – along with Viennese goodie bags.
The town, which has around 100 residents, is paired with Boring in Oregon, in the United States. Hilarious.
The Austrian tourist board said it wanted "to bring Dull to Vienna" in January after the festive period "to show how vibrant this season can be".
I’d like to shine a spotlight on a positive story from the start of the year too.
Rebecca Young (below), an S2 pupil at Kelvinside Academy in Glasgow, beat 70,000 other entrants in January to win a highly coveted UK-wide engineering competition for designing a solar-powered blanket to help the homeless.
She was also named among Time magazine's girls of the year in August.
In positive environmental news, a record number of peatlands have been restored in a bid to help reduce carbon emissions and restore biodiversity , the Scottish Government announced in June.
More than 14,000 hectares of degraded peatlands were restored across Scotland in the past year – which will help reduce emissions and boost biodiversity.
Oh, and the value of goods and services produced in Edinburgh per head of population has surpassed London’s for the first time , according to economic data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This year also saw a firm based in Scotland gain regulatory approval to (hopefully) become the first ever to launch a satellite into space from European soil . Which I find exciting.
The decision from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is the final significant piece of regulatory approval needed for Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) to launch from SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst, the northernmost of the Shetland Islands.
I hear the launch itself is planned for next year.
That brings my final newsletter of the year to an end. It has been a pleasure to hear all your positive feedback – from friends, readers and even a Scottish minister or two.
Have a lovely festive break and roll on ‘26.
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