Europe 2024

 31 May - Edinburgh So yesterday the sun was shining and we went for a walk away from Leith to Newhaven and onto Granton. Both are located on the River Forth.  Granton has a fishing shop Stephen likes to visit but we didn't get that far.  Mainly saw Newhaven which has a small harbour with some local fishing boats.  Used to be independent of Edinburgh and the locals were basically into fishing or shipbuilding.  Used to be important (King James 111 and James 1V had their largest ships built here). The locals had their own traditions and dressed distinctly - they used to inter-marry within their community and the women (Newhaven fishwives) used to carry the fish around with these distinctive baskets on their backs and wear traditional outfits. Apparently the women's outfits in particular were so distinctive that there are many photographs of them.  I can remember seeing something on TV a while back about how these women carried the fish hauls on a basket on th...

  29 May - Edinburgh I remembered I forgot to mention that we somehow ended up in an Episcopalian cathedral in the west end of Edinburgh after we visited Dean Village.  We actually were sheltering from the rain when a lady in there enthusiastically waved us in so we thought we'd better enter.  We were told in no uncertain terms that we were in a cathedral not a church and that they were aligned with the Stuart Kings (who were Protestants) and were definitely not Catholics.  I didn't have the heart to tell her the Stuarts reign ended some time ago in 1714.  Anyway was quite grand as churches go and Stephen and our friend John decided to pretend to be choir boys. Also had a very impressive stained glass window and interesting creatures on the outside door arch.  Yesterday started sunny so I immediately headed out for a walk early morning.  And when I got back it was still sunny so Stephen and I thought we'd head out before that all changed.  The sun...

 27 May Edinburgh Been a while but have friends from Sydney visiting so been a bit busy doing the tour guide bit.  Here is Stephen in his tour guide mode. We had a great morning today.  Re-visited the Modern Art gallery so I was in my happy place.  Saw a very interesting selection of art by a South Korean artist called Do Ho Suh.  He lives in London now but has lived in various places and this exhibition focused on the theme of tracing time - the traces you leave as you go through life.    Pretty clever and some of it was a thread drawing embedded in handmade cotton paper like the 2 below.  Liked this one too of him carrying his home around and the model of a public monument he did which instead of having a famous person on a pedestal, there are little people underneath holding up the pedestal.  Didn't have to be a rocket scientist to work out he was having a go at the people on pedestals who he says "many of whom are deeply problematic" wher...