AWAAGH WI' THE SCOTS

Friday May 28th
I'm writing this from Lochton near Coldstream in Scottish Border country. We are staying with our good friends John and Ros Aitchison who own a farm here. We've been in Scotland since Wednesday after taking an early train from Kings Cross. Four and a half hours later we stepped onto the platform at Edinburgh's Waverley Station. We'd booked into a hotel called the Scotsman, and we were about to follow a set of directions I'd printed up, when we spotted a green door directly across the road. This was the basement entrance to our hotel. Once inside, we learned what a great choice of hotel we'd made. The building was originally the offices and press room of the Scotsman newspaper but it's been converted into a hotel with charming rooms and halls and corridors lined with oak panels and lovely old Scottish prints. The service was superb. Every staff member would greet you with a smile and say good afternoon Mr and Mrs Ryan. Once we'd settled into our room Barbara and I headed out to some exploring. This city is much smaller than London of course, and the architecture is mainly grey stone. It's very easy to navigate and we were soon on the famous Royal Mile and then to Princes Street which is dominated by a huge monument to Sir Walter Scott. There are lots of gardens and lots of double decker buses. And on street corners we passed kilted pipers playing....and playing....and playing!
Barbara and I got on one of those hop on hop off buses and took an hour long tour of the city, craning up to stare at Edinburgh Castle, and down past St Giles Cathedral and tartan bedecked souvenir shops with kilts of every type and sporrans. The cheapest of these were about £20.(Pure tat) But a good kilt can cost upwards of £800.
The Royal Mile is actually a series of connected streets which run down from Edinburgh Castle at one end to Holyrood House (where the Queen stays) at the other.And leading off either side, scores of little closes. Bakehouse Close, Sugarhour Close ,Fleshmarket Close,Carubbers Close, Mary Kings Close (more about that one later) and many more. These are very narrow steep alleyways that run off the main streets. They are centuries old and at one time they all ran down to a waterway which was filled mostly with sewage, but also was used as drinking water. When we reached Holyrood House our bus took up past the New Scottish Parliament House, a somewhat controversial piece of modern Spanish architecture. It's a little beyond here that you break away from the busier streets to a 600 acres public park called Arthur's Seat. This is an enormous cliff which rises high above the city, a bit like Mt Wellington behind Hobart. Whoever originally owned it, donated it to the city. After all there is really nothing else you could have done with it.
We left our bus and walked back along the Royal Mile in search of coffee.
We spotted a charming little place where they served coffee and cakes. You might have described it as typically Scottish only it wasn't. It was Turkish.
Then we went exploring again, this time down one those narrow closes. It opened out into a small square with St Patrick's catholic church in the middle. Inside it was nothing special but for a shrine to Margaret Sinclair. No, we'd never heard of her either. But apparently she lived from 1900 to 1925 and since then she's been credited with some miraculous answers to people's prayers. So much so that there's apparently a bit of a move to declare her a saint. Then we hopped back on the bus and back to the railway station and Sir Walter Scott's memorial. The bagpipers had changed shifts by now, and the entertainment was being provided by a bloke in red tartan kilt and a great big bearskin hat.
It was nearly dinnertime so we found a pub near our hotel, called the Doric where the food was cheap and good, and then home to bed.
We had arranged to meet our friends John and Ros at 11am the next day, so after an excellent breakfast we packed and checked out before doing a bracing walk around the park on Princes Street. The plan was to drive back to John and Ros' later that day but there was still time for some more sightseeing. John's Mercedes hove into view and we threw our bag in the back and set off.
I mentioned Mary King's Close earlier, and that's what we wanted to see. Why? Because back in the middle 1700's the city fathers decided to build what became known as The Royal Exchange.
Now you have to remember that these closes were actually quite steep slopes and they were only about two arms width. They were mostly overcrowded and filthywith something over 600 people living in squalor. So when they built the Royal Exchange, which called for an area of level ground, they simply cropped off the tops of the Close buildings, some of them eight storys high, and built over the top, basically covering over Mary King's Close below. But you still had houses and shops down in the darkness and people continued to live there for a couple of hundred years. The last family to leave was in the nineteenth century. It's only relatively recently that the place was opened up and made safe enough to entice the tourists.
So we spent an hour being guided through a labyrinth of dark passageways and rooms beneath the streets of modern Edinburgh, being shown the tiny hovels and dank airless street, being told stories of how the plague struck the city and the murders that took place here and so on. Of course there are also tales of ghosts and ghoulies too and the guide took every opportunity to scare the wits out of her charges. There are still places where you can stand in the street and look up the sloping thoroughfare to where you can just see daylight above. There were windows and doors but daylight was almost completely absent, hence the somehwat sepia tone of the photo of all of us. It was a fascinating experience and also a highly entertaining one. Feeling slightly exhausted by all this pestilence and misery, we went in search of lunch. Strolling past old book shops and bric a mrac stalls and even a cheese shop, we found a place where we could get a pie and salad for seven quid.
Then Ros and John went shopping while Barbara and I, having spent the morning at the bottom of Edinburgh, set out to go to the top; i.e. Edinburgh Castle. We've all seen this majestic old castle before, when they broadcast the Edinburgh Tattoo on ABC television, but to climb the cobbled roadway and step through the great portcullised gate is another thing again. The castle is perched on an extinct volcano and there have been buildings here since the 12th century. The castle itself is made up of a mix of architectural styles reflecting its role as both a fortress and as a seat of kings. From the parapets you can command a sweeping view of the whole city. Inside you can learn something of the history and view the Scottish crown jewels. On the walls of the Great Hall are displays of broadswords and rapiers and pistols and old flintlocks, and suits of armour. This is still a working barracks and Barb had her picture taken with an obliging group of "squaddies".
Time caught up with us again eventually and we rejoined Ros and John to drive back to their house. On the way we passed the Roslyn Chapel, an ancient stone building made famous in the Da Vinci Code, but with a real non-fictional history of its own. It was undergoing an extensive refurbishment so we didn't go in.
That evening, after a wash and clean up, John said we'd visit what he called Ros' pub. This is a cosy pub up the road, which was saved from closureby the locals all buying shares in it. Thus Ros is now a part owner of a pub. The place is called the Fisherman's Arms and it's quite close to the Tweed River, a popular place for trout and salmon.
And in fact both were on the menu. The smoked salmon was local, the scallops were local, and the delicious shoulder of Border lamb was local too.
Even the two pints of beer which I managed, was local.
Also dining in that evening was a family from Deniliquin who were friends of friends of Ros and John, so we ended the night with them coming back for coffee and John forcing "a few wee drams" of single malt whiskey on us. We slept very well last night!
And today we've done absolutely nothing.