Two days in Edinburgh

Sorry, we lost this post for a day - found it when we got back to London today. We're new at this! So here it is:

Yesterday morning - Saturday - our last at Woodside Croft turned out to be another beautiful one. We were up at six to go check for new lambs and found - none! Helped Beth feed and water the cows, put down new bedding and feed the sheep. The whole process takes Beth about 45 minutes and she does all this before going off to her full time job as a teacher. She is an amazing woman! I got to pet the baby lamb again, probably because Beth let me feed Mom but she (the mom, not Beth!) protested by butting my arm when I attempted to get a little bit closer.

Off to the train station at 9:30. Our train was waiting and took off at 10:30 right on time. It was a beautiful 3 hour ride and we saw quite a bit of the lower Highlands. Arrived in Edinburgh and found our way out of the Waverly train station over to David Street to pick up our bus to our B&B, the Fraoch House. Fraoch means heather in Gaelic. It's a lovely attached home on a street of many B&B's, supposedly a 15 minute walk to the center of town. Since the bus takes about 20 minutes with many stops, I sort of doubt that. We took a double decker bus tour of the city to orient ourselves, walked back down to Holyrood Palace where Mary Queen of Scots lived to check the times it is open on Sunday and then took a bus back to Rose Street to find a pub. Stopped in at The Kenilworth and had a pint and dinner. I had salmon which was very good and John had - well, golly, it was only yesterday and neither one of us can remember!

On the way to the bus stop after dinner, we decided to stop in Sainsbury's, a British grocery chain, for a bottle of Baileys for a little tipple in our room. Each liquor bottle sold here has a large security plastic top on it that is removed at the "till" so you can't leave without paying. It is removed by twisting it and then inserting a special key into the top. Unbeknownst to us, the cashier had also twisted the bottle top and loosened it. We waited about 20 minutes for the bus, rode it back to the B&B not caring that the bottle was sideways in the plastic bag. When we got up to the room, John laid it on the bed. When he picked it up a few moments later, Baileys came pouring out of the bag onto the silk bedspread! John picked up the bag and quickly carried it over to the waste basket, leaving a trail of Baileys across the floor. What a mess! We used about 4 washcloths and two towels blotting it up. Seems like we just can't get into a city without a grand entrance of fiascos of some sort! To beat all, when we finally went to pour ourselves a sip, we realized over half the bottle was gone! We told Gareth, the owner, this morning at breakfast who basically laughed it off. Well, what else could he do? I'm going back to Sainsbury tomorrow with my soaked and practically unreadable receipt and see if we can get a replacement bottle to leave for him.

Slept 10 hours and woke up at 8:15 this morning. For early birds, we are getting used to this sleeping in stuff. Took off for the bus around 9:45 headed for St. Giles Church (pronounced jiles). This is the main church of Scotland, the church of John Knox, and I was quite excited to find when we got there for the 11:30 service that the speaker was a woman! He would have been appalled! A woman in his pulpit! He ranted and raved in his day against women, especially of course Mary and Elizabeth I. It was a special service commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Edinburgh International Science Festival which is supported by the city and this church. There was a special and very impressive procession of all kinds of dignitaries, including the Lord Mayor. It was quite fun and we had great seats. The speaker was Joyce MacMillan, a journalist for The Scotsman, a newspaper, and her topic was how religion should support the research into the unknown, the scientific, not thwart it. We had a great view of the choir director, the speaker and the lay readers. The church is arranged rather oddly, is fairly small for a cathedral and has the most magnificent stained glass windows. I am attaching a link to a video someone took of it but you might get dizzy watching it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1aiRMoS3v4 There is a most incredible organ which you can also Google.

After church , we strolled down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. The last time we were in Edinburgh, it was a rainy day (today was beautiful!), we only had half a day and Holyrood was closed for repairs, so I was really anxious to see it. I've read so much about Mary Queen of Scots who lived there and the dastardly deeds accomplished there that I couldn't wait to get in!


John, meanwhile, preferred climbing up to the top of the volcanic rise behind the city called the Salisbury Craggs, a huge cliff that just rises straight up out of the ground like a huge popover biscuit! Edinburgh Castle on the other end of town is built on top of another one. The geology in this city is astounding. Since my right foot has been irritating me and feels like something was dropped on top of it (who knows where that came from!), we parted ways to do what each of us prefers. We do that a lot when we travel and it's the reason we ordered each a phone when we were in England when we were here in December to learn all about E&P's house. They certainly came in handy today as we tried to find each other after our separate tours.

Anyway, the palace was really interesting and since you could meander at leisure I spent a great deal of time checking out the construction of the draperies and fabrics. (Surprise! Surprise!) You couldn't take any pictures so I'll have to carry all those colors in my head. One room had protective fabric bags tied around the bottom halves of the drapes near a doorway. They were a cranberry flocked velvet and I asked the guide about the bags. She said the traffic was so heavy during the summer and because the drapes were right next to the doorway, they were constantly damaged by the crush of people. Justified our decision to once again visit in the spring instead of the summer. I had the palace almost completely to myself. I was especially thrilled to be standing in Mary's private quarters and on the spot where David Rizzio's body was found hacked to death. He was her Italian personal secretary and her husband, Lord Durnley, had him murdered out of jealousy right in front of the very pregnant Mary. Lovely times.

After our tours, we took the bus to Ocean Terminal to check out the Britannia. It was too late to board her but we will be doing that tomorrow. She is Queen Elizabeth's personal yacht that has been mothballed but is open for tours. Apparently, nothing has been changed and it will be interesting to check out. We had a wonderful dinner of seafood at a restaurant called Fishers on the dock front, took the bus "home" and we are now in our beds watching the final round of the Masters. The time difference of 5 hours makes that possible.

We are mourning the loss of a woman we admired and loved dearly. Dorothy Anne Hrabanek lived 88 years, I believe it was, and she died last week leaving behind probably hundreds others like ourselves who will miss her. You always knew when the phone rang and you heard this light voice with a very distinct southern accent - "Taaaaandy, Joooooohn, Aah'm just calling to seeee how you're doing." We'll miss that and I'm so grateful that we found the time the Wednesday before we left to bring her the Price's fried chicken she loved that I had promised her. It was a very special visit and I really thought she would still be around when we returned. God definitely has increased his ranks of very special angels.

Next morning - It takes a long time to load pictures and post them and it's now Monday morning and we're ready to roll so I'm going to post this now and add more pictures tonight. John took some great ones of the stained glass windows and the views from the Cragg.