Let it SNOW!

It’s snowing this morning- and I don’t mean a flurry—It was COMING DOWN! Our city tour of Edinborough this morning will cover “old town”, new town, Edinborough Castle and Holyrood Palace. We got our bearings a bit and headed to the Palace. On each of these trips, Collette arranges for a photographer to take the group picture. OUTSIDE. By the time we arranged ourselves for the picture, the snow had ceased for a time, but it was still really cold and wet.

We heard all about Robert Louis Stephenson, who lived here and wrote “A Child’s Garden of Verses” which was read to me as I grew up and he also wrote Treasure Island. We saw his house and were told about his sickly childhood. We were told that he lived for a while in San Francisco and then Borneo.

Edinborough is known for 4 “B”’s—Banking, Brewing, Baking and lately Bio-technology (this is where Dolly the sheep was cloned, having been named after Dolly Parton)

Several stories were told about the frugality of Scots people. One of these was that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

We heard about Alexander Graham Bell, who lived here as a child and young man, and who moved to Canada and then the U.S. where he invented the telephone.

We heard about the midwifery (obstetrical) doctor who first used chloroform. The prominent churchmen told him that using it was against the Biblical proclaimation that women should bear children in pain and hardship. However after Queen Victoria experienced the effects of chloroform with the birth of her 8th child, she declared it wonderful and the churchmen were quiet on the subject ever after.

I also heard the tour guide tell us that Presbyterians (back several centuries ago) did not approve of theatre and dance. Oops! I guess the Bwd Presbyterians don't agree with that.

We heard about St. Giles, the “Mother Church of Presbyterianism” --didn’t know we had one of those.

We saw the Elephant House—the pub where J. K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter books. She wrote there to stay warm because she couldn’t afford to heat her flat.

We toured the Palace and the Castle and were not able to take pictures inside either place. We do have some postcards, which are probably better representations that we could have taken.








The castle was COLD, but there was considerable walking to keep us warm.

As we were leaving Edinborough castle we came across a young man dressed as William Wallace (or better yet, as Mel Gibson in Braveheart) To raise money for leukemia research and care, he was posing for pictures in full battle regalia . There was a crush of tourists around him and we declined to join the crush, so we got pictures from afar. And his resemblance to Gibson is remarkable. I hope he collects lots of money for his cause.













After the tour we were “on our own” for the rest of the day. We changed dollars into pounds in the Marks and Spencer’s department store. (It is Sunday and banks are closed)




We found an internet café and checked mail.
N. had put the blog I wrote last night on a flash drive and we were able to transfer it to the blog site without too much trouble. But no pictures yet. That will happen when we have some time and wireless internet in our rooms. Which may not be til we’re home---not sure what the rest of the trip will bring.


On checking e-mail—Nick found out that his cousin Anne Grimes died this morning and will be buried in Shamrock, Tx. on Tuesday. I am sorry that we will not be able to attend Anne’s services.

We ate lunch in a place called THE FILLING STATION- a good selection of food to chose from—and our waiter was a charming your man from Poland. He thought we might be from Ireland. He really must have a poor ear for accents. Interesting items on the menu include: a choice of potatoes, house fries, mash, jacket. (I am guessing that jacket is a baked or boiled potato, but that is just a guess)
The burgers included tomato chili relish on the side (is that salsa?)

I haven’t told you about our hotel room. The bathroom is up a flight of 6 stairs. Treacherous in the dark.



We’re at that part of the hotel that is built on a hill and that portion happens to be higher. We had trouble with the sink stopper (it wouldn’t lift up) and we called maintenance. The man looked at it, declared it not fixable right not and offered us another room on the same floor. We declined- we have unpacked too much stuff—we’ll just DEAL.

Right now N is in the bathroom clanking on the sink, trying to get it working. He shouldn’t be, but he is—It does no good to tell him to CHILL and leave it alone. Doesn’t work.

Of course, I should not be surprised--, N. repaired the sink. I apologize,-- his persistence pays of, usually.

So long from Edinborough.