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electriclandI'm back. Remember me? I see that much has been happening in my absence but 2 weeks is a lot to catch up on so forgive me if I take it slowly.
Far too much to tell about the trip in one post but suffice it to say it was great, wonderful, awesome fun.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crankygrrl and I did not kill each other, either, although we came close at a few points. But only a few. (Mind you, I'm now thinking that if I were a better friend or a better person, I'd have traded in my exit-row aisle seat with tons of legroom on the flight back and come forward to share her 3-child, middle-seat misery. Oh dear.) I see she's dealt well with the first half of the trip. I don't know if I can even manage to do that much for the second half (haven't even updated all of my paper journal properly though I'm doing my best) but I'll try. Or perhaps I will just deal with the last 48 hours or so... Actually if I feel really ambitious I may (a) put up a website, (b) put up a set of backdated and much more detailed entries, or (c) both.
Yeah, right.
The short version, picking up from here and with luck omitting most of the blither that infests my paper journal:
Spent Wednesday evening (last week this is now) in the Matchmakers pub in the Albert Hotel talking to the bartender (a girl about our age from Kitchener-Waterloo, there really are a lot of Canadians on Orkney) and a man formerly from Dundee, now resident on Flotta, who was waiting for the bus that would take him to his ferry. Celtic squished Dundee 6-2. Ate marvellous food (Orkney is very hot on local produce and it's delicious -- they grow nothing but cows and sheep and things to feed them on. I am addicted to Orkney ice cream, not that I'll find it here mind you, I'll have to console myself with Highland Park).
Kate didn't mention, but the field next to our hostel was full of black Angus steers. They were, in the words of the woman working reception at the hostel on Tuesday night, "daft" -- any time we came up the lane you would see a whole herd of interested black heads turning towards you. Quite often you couldn't see anything but fuzzy black ears, depending where you were standing at the time. K believes they were malevolent but I think they just didn't get a lot of variety in their lives.
Thursday morning dragged ourselves up far too early and I snarked at Kate for rushing me out of the hostel although of course she was quite right. Napped on the pier at Berwick, my knapsack proving surprisingly comfortable as a backrest. Well, maybe not that surprising. Dumped our bags back at the Ho Ho Hostel in Inverness (same room, different beds), then caught a bus to Culloden. Very moving and sorrowful and frustrating. The interpretive centre is full of information and nasty stories but, as it should be, there isn't much to see on the battlefield itself: they have 2 flags marking the front lines of each army and markers for each company. But it really is just a bog and we spent quite a bit of time wandering about criticizing the Jacobite leaders who thought this would be a good place to station an army that had just marched all night, left its food in Inverness, and was in any case more accustomed to charging downhill. Kate bought a white cockade. They imported a flock of Hebridean sheep to keep the shrubs and young trees down -- apparently they are light (so they won't disturb any archaeological evidence) and selective about what they eat (so they won't munch on the heather). The graves are in a separate area. There's a local superstition that no heather will grow on them. Rather awful, the clan markers are just roughly carved stones (added much later) but they mark such long mounds.
Bus to Perth Friday. Perth thwarted us: misleading bus schedules and no taxis, so no Scone Palace, and the kirk closed at 4. However we had to change buses there in any case so it didn't do us much harm.
Stiff climb uphill to our Edinburgh hostel. Nothing really prepares you for seeing the Royal Mile in the flesh, or rather in the volcanic rock. It runs from the castle in the west (extinct volcano with 3 sides sheared away by glaciers) down a long spur to Holyrood in the east. Mysterious narrow closes and wynds run off it at right-angles and the houses are all tall and narrow and built on insane angles to accommodate the sharp drop-off (60 degrees in places, I swear). Edinburgh is an amazing city and I wish I'd seen more of it. (The Royal Mile is very touristy though, I felt a bit like prey staked out for the ants. Although I am now regretting I didn't buy a lambswool travel rug for 26 pounds. Next time. My bank account is in enough pain as it is.)
Carol and Judi arrived Saturday morning as planned, having very nobly hopped on an all-night bus from London to spend the weekend. We sorted out the hostels -- much confusion because I'd booked 2 beds for K and me Friday night at the Royal Mile since we were getting in a day earlier than we thought, but they'd sent us across the road to the High Street hostel, and Judi had booked and paid for 4 beds for all of us for Saturday but they couldn't actually take up residence until 11, and while I thought it would be nice for the four of us to share a room I was envisioning an endless parade of bags back and forth across the Royal Mile and I thought on the whole it would be much simpler just to book into the rooms we already had for the next 2 nights. Which we did, which meant Judi had to persuade them to cough up a refund for the beds we weren't using.
Now that I come to look at this I can see why they were confused.
In any case we got all that sorted out, and then we went off to look at the Falkirk Wheel which is really very cool. Then we looked at the Antonine Wall which is right nearby, but not terribly impressive as Roman remains go, more like the Large Antonine Ditch. Then we went to look at Linlithgow Palace which was much more K's cup of tea, it's huge and ruined and they let you go all over it. Definite family similarities with the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall although there's much more of Linlithgow. K was especially taken with the Historic Scotland signs in the courtyard saying "Someone has taken the fountain!" I saw house martins, for some reason they only came out while it was raining (perhaps more bugs?). For some reason I always go gaga over birds while on vacation although at no other time; K, bless her, bought me a bird book on Orkney so I was all set, although quite often the birds didn't quite seem to match up to their pictures.
Having clambered all over the palace we were in need of refreshment so we headed back to the Four Maries pub in the village. Carol and Judi then went to walk around the loch -- my lord but those girls have energy -- but K and I felt we weren't quite restored enough for that so we had another pint and wrote postcards.
Sunday we all split up. I did the free walking tour the hostel offered and then just wandered about, K went off to do mass and museums and C & J headed off to North Berwick (more walking!). Lovely day, and I bought a wood and glass necklace from a tiny art gallery in the Oldest House on the Royal Mile. All tempted by other stuff too but resisted owing to the size of my knapsack. Saw C & J off on another all-night coach that evening -- it was lovely to see them, Judi and I were reckoning it's getting on for 18 years since we'd actually seen each other in the flesh, so I'm pretty darn impressed we managed it!
Monday morning I looked around Edinburgh Castle (K had been on Sunday despite impressing on me that I was on no account to go because we were doing it Monday /grump) -- beautiful and I do wish I'd had more time, there was such a lot to see. Then we went down to Roslin and looked at Rosslyn Chapel, which I thought was wonderful -- so much care and effort and detail lavished on those carvings, it's like an endlessly intricate puzzle, there are all kinds of jokes and mysteries hidden there. I do admit, though, the overall effect is a little much. K less whelmed.
On to Stirling, which is fairly bloody vertical but a nice little town. We ate expensive but good Italian food and had a lovely long bitch about the new Star Wars films (I believe it was at this point that K told me about George Lucas firing his editor, and I wondered whether this would make the third one better or worse, and we wondered whether it was actually possible to make any of them better, and then we remembered about the Phantom Edit and wondered if the Phantom Editor had simply flung his hands up in despair when he saw AOTC, and then K suggested that perhaps the recently fired editor WAS the Phantom Editor, and I find this theory so beguiling that, even though it's almost certainly untrue, I am going to spread it every chance I get... sorry, a bit off topic there).
Then we went and saw X2 because there appeared to be bugger all else to do in Stirling on a Monday night, although the hordes of partying university students arguing outside our window at midnight clearly had other ideas.
Tuesday, the Church of the Holy Rude, Argyll's Lodging, and Stirling Castle. Excellent castle. We saw them working on the unicorn tapestries (well, the first one) -- the loom is 10 feet high, utterly bloody amazing.
Caught the train to Glasgow and collapsed gratefully into Stuart and Gillian's apartment. They have embraced Real Life with a vengeance and not only do they own the flat, they have the builders in; every wall and large parts of the living-room ceiling were a sort of marbled peach colour with new plaster. (Honest-to-goodness plaster, not drywall. We were so impressed.) Ate chili and just relaxed and chatted, it was lovely.
Wednesday (eek! that's yesterday!) K and I walked to Glasgow University and I went to look at the Mackintosh House and the Colourists in the Hunterian Art Gallery while she went to the Kelvingrove Museum in search of suits of armour. Then I walked downtown and eventually to the cathedral, where we met up again (quite by accident) and went to have an enormous tea at the Willow Tea Rooms. Yum. By the time we got out the streets were getting quite full of green-and-white Celtic supporters and it was starting to rain, we did a wee bit of shopping and then caught a taxi home. Riotous evening as all Stuart's mates came over to watch the game, we ate pizza and drank beer and screamed and howled and K and I got a crash course in the politics of Scottish vs. English sports coverage on the BBC... much dejection when Celtic lost 3-2 and I must say even to my ignorant eyes the ref was far from in control of the game and the Porto side were just hamming it up beyond belief. One guy, Fraser, never went home and wound up in a sleeping bag on the floor between our two sofa beds. The look of panicked bafflement on his face ((who am I? where am I? who the hell are THEY?) when he woke up the next morning and saw the both of us sipping tea and staring at him was priceless.
Then we said our goodbyes and Stuart drove us to the airport and we negotiated the herds of heartbroken football fans and got on the plane. And that was that.
Whoa. Um, it looks like I'm done. Sorry, all very "then this happened" but I'll provide analysis and impressions some time, I promise... suffice it to say, I loved it, I want to go back NOW! Time for bed.
Far too much to tell about the trip in one post but suffice it to say it was great, wonderful, awesome fun.
crankygrrl and I did not kill each other, either, although we came close at a few points. But only a few. (Mind you, I'm now thinking that if I were a better friend or a better person, I'd have traded in my exit-row aisle seat with tons of legroom on the flight back and come forward to share her 3-child, middle-seat misery. Oh dear.) I see she's dealt well with the first half of the trip. I don't know if I can even manage to do that much for the second half (haven't even updated all of my paper journal properly though I'm doing my best) but I'll try. Or perhaps I will just deal with the last 48 hours or so... Actually if I feel really ambitious I may (a) put up a website, (b) put up a set of backdated and much more detailed entries, or (c) both.Yeah, right.
The short version, picking up from here and with luck omitting most of the blither that infests my paper journal:
Spent Wednesday evening (last week this is now) in the Matchmakers pub in the Albert Hotel talking to the bartender (a girl about our age from Kitchener-Waterloo, there really are a lot of Canadians on Orkney) and a man formerly from Dundee, now resident on Flotta, who was waiting for the bus that would take him to his ferry. Celtic squished Dundee 6-2. Ate marvellous food (Orkney is very hot on local produce and it's delicious -- they grow nothing but cows and sheep and things to feed them on. I am addicted to Orkney ice cream, not that I'll find it here mind you, I'll have to console myself with Highland Park).
Kate didn't mention, but the field next to our hostel was full of black Angus steers. They were, in the words of the woman working reception at the hostel on Tuesday night, "daft" -- any time we came up the lane you would see a whole herd of interested black heads turning towards you. Quite often you couldn't see anything but fuzzy black ears, depending where you were standing at the time. K believes they were malevolent but I think they just didn't get a lot of variety in their lives.
Thursday morning dragged ourselves up far too early and I snarked at Kate for rushing me out of the hostel although of course she was quite right. Napped on the pier at Berwick, my knapsack proving surprisingly comfortable as a backrest. Well, maybe not that surprising. Dumped our bags back at the Ho Ho Hostel in Inverness (same room, different beds), then caught a bus to Culloden. Very moving and sorrowful and frustrating. The interpretive centre is full of information and nasty stories but, as it should be, there isn't much to see on the battlefield itself: they have 2 flags marking the front lines of each army and markers for each company. But it really is just a bog and we spent quite a bit of time wandering about criticizing the Jacobite leaders who thought this would be a good place to station an army that had just marched all night, left its food in Inverness, and was in any case more accustomed to charging downhill. Kate bought a white cockade. They imported a flock of Hebridean sheep to keep the shrubs and young trees down -- apparently they are light (so they won't disturb any archaeological evidence) and selective about what they eat (so they won't munch on the heather). The graves are in a separate area. There's a local superstition that no heather will grow on them. Rather awful, the clan markers are just roughly carved stones (added much later) but they mark such long mounds.
Bus to Perth Friday. Perth thwarted us: misleading bus schedules and no taxis, so no Scone Palace, and the kirk closed at 4. However we had to change buses there in any case so it didn't do us much harm.
Stiff climb uphill to our Edinburgh hostel. Nothing really prepares you for seeing the Royal Mile in the flesh, or rather in the volcanic rock. It runs from the castle in the west (extinct volcano with 3 sides sheared away by glaciers) down a long spur to Holyrood in the east. Mysterious narrow closes and wynds run off it at right-angles and the houses are all tall and narrow and built on insane angles to accommodate the sharp drop-off (60 degrees in places, I swear). Edinburgh is an amazing city and I wish I'd seen more of it. (The Royal Mile is very touristy though, I felt a bit like prey staked out for the ants. Although I am now regretting I didn't buy a lambswool travel rug for 26 pounds. Next time. My bank account is in enough pain as it is.)
Carol and Judi arrived Saturday morning as planned, having very nobly hopped on an all-night bus from London to spend the weekend. We sorted out the hostels -- much confusion because I'd booked 2 beds for K and me Friday night at the Royal Mile since we were getting in a day earlier than we thought, but they'd sent us across the road to the High Street hostel, and Judi had booked and paid for 4 beds for all of us for Saturday but they couldn't actually take up residence until 11, and while I thought it would be nice for the four of us to share a room I was envisioning an endless parade of bags back and forth across the Royal Mile and I thought on the whole it would be much simpler just to book into the rooms we already had for the next 2 nights. Which we did, which meant Judi had to persuade them to cough up a refund for the beds we weren't using.
Now that I come to look at this I can see why they were confused.
In any case we got all that sorted out, and then we went off to look at the Falkirk Wheel which is really very cool. Then we looked at the Antonine Wall which is right nearby, but not terribly impressive as Roman remains go, more like the Large Antonine Ditch. Then we went to look at Linlithgow Palace which was much more K's cup of tea, it's huge and ruined and they let you go all over it. Definite family similarities with the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall although there's much more of Linlithgow. K was especially taken with the Historic Scotland signs in the courtyard saying "Someone has taken the fountain!" I saw house martins, for some reason they only came out while it was raining (perhaps more bugs?). For some reason I always go gaga over birds while on vacation although at no other time; K, bless her, bought me a bird book on Orkney so I was all set, although quite often the birds didn't quite seem to match up to their pictures.
Having clambered all over the palace we were in need of refreshment so we headed back to the Four Maries pub in the village. Carol and Judi then went to walk around the loch -- my lord but those girls have energy -- but K and I felt we weren't quite restored enough for that so we had another pint and wrote postcards.
Sunday we all split up. I did the free walking tour the hostel offered and then just wandered about, K went off to do mass and museums and C & J headed off to North Berwick (more walking!). Lovely day, and I bought a wood and glass necklace from a tiny art gallery in the Oldest House on the Royal Mile. All tempted by other stuff too but resisted owing to the size of my knapsack. Saw C & J off on another all-night coach that evening -- it was lovely to see them, Judi and I were reckoning it's getting on for 18 years since we'd actually seen each other in the flesh, so I'm pretty darn impressed we managed it!
Monday morning I looked around Edinburgh Castle (K had been on Sunday despite impressing on me that I was on no account to go because we were doing it Monday /grump) -- beautiful and I do wish I'd had more time, there was such a lot to see. Then we went down to Roslin and looked at Rosslyn Chapel, which I thought was wonderful -- so much care and effort and detail lavished on those carvings, it's like an endlessly intricate puzzle, there are all kinds of jokes and mysteries hidden there. I do admit, though, the overall effect is a little much. K less whelmed.
On to Stirling, which is fairly bloody vertical but a nice little town. We ate expensive but good Italian food and had a lovely long bitch about the new Star Wars films (I believe it was at this point that K told me about George Lucas firing his editor, and I wondered whether this would make the third one better or worse, and we wondered whether it was actually possible to make any of them better, and then we remembered about the Phantom Edit and wondered if the Phantom Editor had simply flung his hands up in despair when he saw AOTC, and then K suggested that perhaps the recently fired editor WAS the Phantom Editor, and I find this theory so beguiling that, even though it's almost certainly untrue, I am going to spread it every chance I get... sorry, a bit off topic there).
Then we went and saw X2 because there appeared to be bugger all else to do in Stirling on a Monday night, although the hordes of partying university students arguing outside our window at midnight clearly had other ideas.
Tuesday, the Church of the Holy Rude, Argyll's Lodging, and Stirling Castle. Excellent castle. We saw them working on the unicorn tapestries (well, the first one) -- the loom is 10 feet high, utterly bloody amazing.
Caught the train to Glasgow and collapsed gratefully into Stuart and Gillian's apartment. They have embraced Real Life with a vengeance and not only do they own the flat, they have the builders in; every wall and large parts of the living-room ceiling were a sort of marbled peach colour with new plaster. (Honest-to-goodness plaster, not drywall. We were so impressed.) Ate chili and just relaxed and chatted, it was lovely.
Wednesday (eek! that's yesterday!) K and I walked to Glasgow University and I went to look at the Mackintosh House and the Colourists in the Hunterian Art Gallery while she went to the Kelvingrove Museum in search of suits of armour. Then I walked downtown and eventually to the cathedral, where we met up again (quite by accident) and went to have an enormous tea at the Willow Tea Rooms. Yum. By the time we got out the streets were getting quite full of green-and-white Celtic supporters and it was starting to rain, we did a wee bit of shopping and then caught a taxi home. Riotous evening as all Stuart's mates came over to watch the game, we ate pizza and drank beer and screamed and howled and K and I got a crash course in the politics of Scottish vs. English sports coverage on the BBC... much dejection when Celtic lost 3-2 and I must say even to my ignorant eyes the ref was far from in control of the game and the Porto side were just hamming it up beyond belief. One guy, Fraser, never went home and wound up in a sleeping bag on the floor between our two sofa beds. The look of panicked bafflement on his face ((who am I? where am I? who the hell are THEY?) when he woke up the next morning and saw the both of us sipping tea and staring at him was priceless.
Then we said our goodbyes and Stuart drove us to the airport and we negotiated the herds of heartbroken football fans and got on the plane. And that was that.
Whoa. Um, it looks like I'm done. Sorry, all very "then this happened" but I'll provide analysis and impressions some time, I promise... suffice it to say, I loved it, I want to go back NOW! Time for bed.
