Art and Arthur's Seat

Hi all. It’s currently 15.2 degrees at about 3:30 Sunday arvo. This is the warmest it’s been since we arrived and is another sign that spring is here. Birds have started twittering, bare branches are budding new leaves and the days are getting longer. The change of seasons seems to be so much more rapid here than back home. It’s exciting. We can’t wait for the long summer evenings when it stays light until 11pm-ish.

Since Max is now back home, we’ve been able to get out and about so much more and have been living it up!

Last Friday of the week before last we went after work for dinner and ended up a place called ‘The World’s End’ in the Royal mile. They advertised that they served the biggest and best pieces of fish on the mile. C. had the fish and it certainly must have been close to the biggest piece of fish I’ve even seen served at a restaurant: it hung about 10cm over either end of the plate. Of course, it was heavily battered and is not something that you can eat too much of. The Scottish do like their battered takeaways. I had haggis, neeps and tatties again, this time with a whisky cream sauce, and it was excellent. C. had a taste of haggis and commented that it didn’t taste too bad. I was very proud of her for trying it, although I have major doubt that she’ll ever eat any again. I also had a pint of Dark Island ale, one of the countless real ales that are on tap over here. I mention it specifically only because it was so unbelievably good.

The following day we tackled the Royal Museum of Scotland. It has 6 storeys and we only managed to get through 2 of them in 4 hours. The good thing is that we have plenty of time to see the rest of it. There are lots of interesting Roman and Viking artefacts, although after a while it became a bit of overload. There’re only so many Roman swords and helmets that you can look at before the eyes start to glaze over. We took side trip in one of the ‘fun’ parts where we saw Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, and a real Gemini space capsule.

On Sunday we woke up to find it had snowed during the night, much to our surprise. About an hour later it was snowing again, this time quite heavily. This seemed to be putting a dampener on our plans to walk around the New Town that day but, after having been stuck at home nearly every weekend for a couple of months, there was no way we weren’t getting out of the house.

We drove to the gym first then went back home to get changed. By the time we set out just after lunch all of the snow had melted and it wasn’t all that unpleasant being outside, apart from being a bit windy and sleety at times.

We walked around Stockbridge, the New Town, and visited all sorts of charity, book and other shops. The highlight for me was I J Mellis, a cheesemonger. I could have spent a long time just lingering over the wares but we only bought one thing, a chunk of gorgonzola that I now have come to realise is the best cheese. Ever. We ate it mashed onto slices of a baguette that we bought on our way home. Bliss.

This weekend we decided to visit the Gallery of Modern Art. As has been noted oft times, the enjoyment of art is highly dependent on the perspective of the observer. Our observation of some of the art was that it was complete tot. But good luck to the artist: if they can convince someone to give them money for a metal pole sticking out of block of concrete and get them to believe that it highlights the fragility of the ‘human condition’, then good luck to them. They certainly then are artists, alright, just maybe not the type they are purporting to be.

Having said that, there was a quite a lot that was interesting and different. One of artworks that fit into the ‘different’ category was a lamb preserved in a glass tank of formaldehyde. I can’t remember if there was a point to it, but the tank obviously wasn’t perfectly sealed as you could smell the formaldehyde went you entered the room. [Note from C: I think the point was to illustrate the fragility of life and show humankind’s relationship with death. But it just made me feel sorry for the poor little lamby.]

After the gallery, C. got her hair done while I wandered around exploring, looking at shops and buying some work clothes. When we met up again, we went to Crombies, a ‘Purveyor of Fine Meats’. They claim to have over 100 types of sausages. We couldn’t help but be reminded of Kel Knight. I wonder if Crombies inspired the character? We purchased 3 different types: Pork and caramelised onions, Northumbrian leek, and Whisky, hog and wild thyme and had them last night with greens and mashed potato. Pretty dang tasty.

Due to Edinburgh’s place as a centre of culture, science and the arts throughout history, it’s not unusual to stumble across places of note while just walking down a non-descript street. That happened yesterday to us while walking home. We went past a terrace house with a plaque that said, ‘The Icelandic National Anthem was composed in this house in 1874’. So now you know.

Today after going the gym, we climbed to the top of Arthur’s seat, the highest point in Edinburgh, located in the Holyrood park. It’s mostly easy going with just a couple of steep sections, but having just come from the gym, we were glad to get to the top and rest. We probably needed it to work off the sausages, haggis and battered fish of the last couple week.

Only a week and a few days until we head to Nuremberg, so we’re starting to get excited about that.

On the whole we are missing Max but not missing the restricted lifestyle. We feel like we’ve only now begun to enjoy ourselves properly here. More fun on the way!