Edinburgh

Last week’s choir practice in Edinburgh proved not too bad.  The ending of one song was a big worry to Jackie and she said she had been dreading us doing it.  However, everyone knew their part and we managed to put it together not badly at all!   I’m still struggling with the words though.  Anyway, after a jolly session in the pub afterwards, Jennifer and I caught the bus down to the New Town, where she lives in a basement apartment, in rather a prestigious street, not far from Princes Street.  I was to go shopping for a kilt skirt next morning – choir uniform - so had cadged a bed for the night, so I wouldn’t have to drive home to Peebles – late – and return the next morning - early!

These beautiful Georgian New Town buildings started life as family homes for the more well off of Edinburgh citizens in the 18th century. The basements, below street level were the servants’ quarters, with their own front door reached by a stairway going down from the street, as you can see on the left.  

 

The family living upstairs had a much more elaborate entrance, with steps flying over the “area” which was the yard outside the servants’ entrance, to a large front door possibly with fanlight above, and maybe a lamp or two outside . These would be lit by a servant to guide the family members home after an evening outing (dancing at the Assembly Rooms on George Street perhaps).  Flaming torches would have been used to illuminate the homecomer’s way, and these were extinguished in the cone shaped “snuffer” fixed at the foot of one of the lamps – which you can see at the base of the right hand lamp post above.

The New Town houses today are pretty much all subdivided now, and many are used as offices of business companies, solicitors and organisations of one sort or another, but there are still a great many flats or apartments that are residential, including Jennifer’s former servants’ rooms.  The rows of houses are beautiful, classical in style, 

often showing  the individual preferences of  the original owners. 

 

Columned porticos, bow windows, ornamental balustrades, all sit next to each other with grace and ease. 

Shops may have been original feature of some of the street level buildings.  Today there are trendy shops, distinguished art galleries, flam-boyant restaurants with fancy names, and fabulous teashops serving delightful and expensive cakes with tea or coffee.

I walked to Princes Street, the “first” street of the 18th century New Town, crossed to

the beautiful art galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy and National Gallery, to walk up the Playfair steps to the top of the Mound, and into the Old Town, which is situated on a ridge sloping down from

 

 

the Castle to the Palace of Holyrood (the Royal Mile).  There are several Scottish souvenir shops near the top of the Mile, but I couldn’t find the kilt skirt I wanted, and it wasn’t until the afternoon when I met Linda and went down to Leith, once the main port of Edinburgh, that I found what I was looking for – a Black Watch tartan kilted skirt, that was not too expensive but not rubbishy either!  I was mighty pleased. At last I have my choir uniform, so now I can sing in the Mods at Mull and Caithness, provided I know my words!!!

Talk again soon.

Home again

I wandered around Tarbert a bit before starting off on the road home. 

 

 

A pair of swans were out in the harbour – I heard later that this pair had ousted the resident pair plus several cygnets just that week, and the local folk were not happy to have lost the family.   The tide was just short of high and the adult birds were preening in the shallow water.  What reflections! 

Paid a visit to the Co-op - overlooking the harbour –  and had to take a photo of some Gaelic signing, albeit below the English, and in smaller lettering.

Browsing and shopping done, I got back in the car and – reluctantly – left Tarbert behind, not by ferry this time but by the road, the long way - round the sea lochs, going north first and turning south at Arrochar (ARRuh-chur)and Tarbet – same derivation as Tarbert.

There are pretty coastal villages and towns all the way up Loch Fyne to Inveraray (INver- AIRy), this being a model village built by an 18th century Duke of Argyll whose home was

 

the castle just round the bay.  The current Duke still lives there with his family.   Ween and I spent several weekend breaks in Inveraray in our younger days, with friends who liked to go fishing in the loch!  Happy days!!  We visited the castle at least once, and another time were devastated that there had been a bad fire there.  We could still smell the burnt timbers in the village which is still a good half mile away.   Just a quick stop to eat a sandwich, and take photos,  and I was on my way again.  Before reaching Arrochar there is a long haul uphill through a mountain pass that has taken the name from the nickname given to the summit – the Rest and Be Thankful!  In the days when this sentiment was first expressed the journey on foot or on horseback must have been a tough one.

I had one more stop before home and that was on the banks of Loch Lomond, where I photographed the Ben  - Ben Lomond - that dominates the loch.  I’ve been up there – once - right to the summit, with some visually impaired hill walker friends.  That was a good while ago!!  It’s not a bad walk, with lovely views on route!  We got mist near the top that time, but it didn’t matter that much.  We all enjoyed ourselves!

So a couple of hours later, having negotiated the Erskine Bridge over the river Clyde, and the motorway through Glasgow, I was home again, back to reality!  What next? you may ask!  Well, that’s for the next time!

Talk again soon.

Still Kintyre

I took lots of photos of flowers in Kintyre, so today I’ll show you a few of those.  First a hebe, then a hydrangea.  Try as we might we just can’t seem to grow these in Peebles, but over here there were pink ones, and blue ones, all looking fantastic.

 

 

 

 

The wild roses were almost over and the rosehips growing large and red, but I found one rose still in flower.  What a scent!

As well as growing in nearly every garden along the coast these crocosmias grow wild along the hedgerows.  I’m not as a rule fond of orange flowers, but these certainly are pretty.

The bunch of wild flowers was pretty too.   There were so many different flowers, but I thought they’d look nice in a bunch, in a photo, and I gave them to Hilary on one of my visits.

So Frantic Friday had come and lace was displayed and photographed, and so were we – outside in the garden, in the morning...

…when the midges were out.

Little blighters!

 

 

It was the first time we’d really been bothered by them!

 

Jane produced a couple of pretty Milanese lace pieces.

 

 

Margaret finished her wedding horseshoe...

but the rest of us were still in mid-lace.  Linda’s picture was beginning to take shape.

 

 

Ann had got all her threads in and had amassed a decent amount of pins… as had I, but at last I was able to take some of the earlier ones out to see what I had made so far.  Jenny had only been able to come down from Tarbert for two or three days, and Judith, from Campbeltown had left early, so I didn’t get photos of their work.

So, nearing the end of the holiday, I had a final walk on the beach, and waited a while for this shotof the wave breaking over the rock!  The view across the rocks and boulders to A’Chleit (below) was as pretty as ever, and to take it I actually got my feet in the water!

 

 

and here’s another cloudscape over Islay.

So,I will finish off with some  sunset pics.  We didn’t  get any really stunning sunsets, but we

 

did get some amazing skies,

 

 

 

 

 

and at least a pretty sunset in an almost cloud-less sky.

 

 

 

Again I played with filters to produce some interesting effects…

Better to enlarge these, I think.

So Saturday morning saw us all bidding farewell and heading off in our various directions.  I had a cup of tea with Neil and Hilary before taking a wander round Tarbert .  Bowmore, Neil’s labrador, decided to adopt my foot and use it as a pillow!  He’s a handsome fellow!

 

 

 

Tarbert is really a very colourful town.  I love to see the buildings being brightened up!

 

I have one or two more pictures I took on the way home, but they can wait for my next post!  Hope I haven’t gone OTT with photos today!

 Just one more photo – for Linda in Edinburgh.  She and her partner have a little boat they call Wee Red!  The boat on the right is Little Blue!

Talk again soon.

Another post from Kintyre

Well, not exactly from Kintyre, but about my visit there, as I’m home again now, and struggling to fit in all the things I have committed myself to in my retirement.  Anyway, back to Kintyre!  I’ve told you before that I have rellies up in Tarbert ,so I managed to spend time with them during the lacemaking week!  On the Monday I joined them at their Gaelic choir practice, which as before was fun.  They are singing different songs to us, so it was good to be trying out more new songs, as well as get to know some of the choir members.  Here are some of the tenors having a little practice together. before we took ourselves off to the pub for a little bevy and some good craic.   

On the Thursday afternoon I went up to Tarbert again, this time stopping to take a few photos on the road up from Linda’s. 

These are the church at A’chleit, and the Jura mountains from a different perspective. 

 

 

 

 

Clachan, which used to be on the road down the peninsula, is now bypassed by the present main road, so I detoured to take this photo.  Clachan is a pretty little village with a row of terraced cottages along each side, one of which has incorporated one of our old red telephone kiosks as its front porch!  

One of the cottages was for sale!   I’d have loved a look inside it!  No time though – and certainly not enough money to even contemplate the idea of a holiday home, though it would be nice!!!

Nearing Tarbert there is a beautiful view of West Loch Tarbert which I had to stop to photograph, and then the road heads away from the west side over to the town of Tarbert on the east side of the peninsula.  It is only a narrow strip of land here, which is what the Gaelic Tarbert or Tarbet, in some places, has come to mean.  There’s a story that it is the only Scottish mainland “island” as in 1098 Magnus III of Norway, Magnus Barefoot, made a treaty with the Scottish King Edgar, claiming  for Norway as much land as he could take a boat round.  He sailed round the Western Isles and then set to sail round Kintyre, but when he reached Tarbert he got his men to carry their longship over the isthmus, so he could also lay claim to the peninsula.  Today he could sail through the Crinan Canal and claim a bit more land!  So I suppose you could say that this area is an island now! 

This is the view from Neil’s house overlooking the harbour, while the next photo, from Wikimedia, shows the view from the hill on the other side, back to the harbour.

  It’s a very pretty town.

 

 

 

 

This is the church on the left of the photo above, and below are Neil, Hilary and Woofy the cat at home.   They had guests staying that night. Joy, a tall slim blonde lass from near Oban, sings Gaelic, solo and in a choir known as Atomic Piseag!  Piseag (PEEshak) is Gaelic for kitten, and the name is a play on the name of a late 1990s pop group very big around the time the Piseags began!  That should really be Piseagan, the plural of piseag!  Along with Joy were her accompanists, Sue, who plays cello, and Paul who plays guitar.  They were doing a west of Scotlandl tour, and were performing in Carradale that evening, so as Neil was going along to hear them, I went too.  It was a lovely night, and  when I found some of the Tarbert choir members were also there, two of them Piseagan themselves, it was nice to feel part of the community! Joy’s singing was superb, and her musical backing excellent!

It was  fairly late that night again, when I returned to Muasdale (Moozdale or Moozdle, a Norse name, probably from Magnus Barelegs’ time!).  Everyone had gone to bed, so I crept back to my room, hopefully not disturbing anyone!  Next day was Frantic Friday, our last day,when everyone works hard to try and complete their lace project. How quickly the week had passed – but I still have photos to share, so I’m not done yet!

Talk again soon.