Week One

March 25-April 1

Hi: This is the first edition of an email blog I am going to try to send weekly or thereabouts during my two months in Scotland. Thanks for the inspiration to Anne Marie McKaskle who wrote such a wonderful account of her time in Italy. I have no hope of reaching her levels of energy, erudition and exploration but I will try to pass along some scenes and experiences here in Scotland.

I left Houston on Continental on March 25 headed for just over two months in Edinburgh Scotland. I will be staying with my oldest daughter, Tasca, her husband Jim who teaches and does research at the University of Edinburgh and my granddaughter Bo. The 8:50 flight out of Houston took me to a seven hour layover in Newark. I had a seatmate named Lillian who was the most pleasant person. She was on her way to spend a month in Geneva with her daughter. It turned out that she was the youngest person in the concentration camps in Montana during WWII, having been an orphan at the beginning of the period, but finding a very happy ending with adoption, and loving foster parents. She was certainly a friendly and gracious lady and I enjoyed our conversation.

The second leg of the flight also found friendly and unusual seatmates…after my last flight to Edinburgh where I sat beside a Scottish soccer hooligan who had the flu and was drunk and constantly bothering the young lady on the other side of him…spilling drinks and food. Anyone would have been an improvement, but I drew two young lads from Edinburgh who were world travelers. They were coming back from Orlando Fl. where they had spent a couple of weeks. What made them unique besides their friendliness was that they were both confined to wheelchairs, and the older brother had rather severe muscular dystrophy and speech problems.

When we arrived at Edinburgh the skies were clear and the plane took a path around the city and I got to see all of the places I had gotten to know in Nov.2004. The city was warm that Sunday, and it completed a series of strange coincidences… The last time I was in Edinburgh Airport it was shirtsleeve weather and it was freezing when I got to Houston. I had to pour hot coffee on the door lock to unlock the Infiniti. This time there was a hard freeze in Houston and shirtsleeves again when I arrived in Edinburgh. Overall the weather has been nicer than it was in Nov. even though most of the locals have cautioned me that it will really be about the same.

I found that Tasca, Jim and Bo were all suffering severe colds or flu when I got here so our outings have been somewhat limited, but everyone is recovering and we have gotten out for some fun.

Yesterday, Sunday, we caught bus 42 to Duddingston Village where the Sheep’s Heid Inn is located. The cost for the bus was one quid (pound) each. It is one of the oldest continually serving inns in Scotland and is not touristy in any sense. We, Jim and I, hoisted a pint of Sheep’s Heid Ale while Tasca and Bo shared a hot chocolate. The ale was described as a stout, but I thought that it was closer to a dark porter. I think from the picture that you can see what else I thought of it. We waited and played moon in the downstairs until a table became free upstairs and then we had a late lunch, early dinner there. Tasca had a Beef Pie with a fantastic pastry on top of the meat pie. Jim had a salmon which he declared very tasty, and I had the Traditional Scottish Roast with All the Trimming and potatoes…..lol. The roast was excellent, not overcooked as is so common in the UK. There was no bread served with it, and the trimmings consisted of three carrot strips and three green beans, but there was a generous serving of potatoes, peeled and cooked whole, with a sort of glaze that made them even tastier. I had finished most of them before Tasca reminded me that I didn’t eat potatoes. I think that she just wanted some of them. The wait staff was superior and much appreciated. She described herself as “ginger” which locally means red hair. A photo of her is included in the attached photos.

After the meal we walked to Duddingston loch and enjoyed the geese, ducks and swans that live there with almost no fear of people. From there we walked back to Hamilton’s Folly Mews on a path that wound around Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury which was a walk of over two miles. Just this first week in Scotland with all the walking I had to take up my belt a notch. Poor old strained belt…lol. We walk a mile or two at least every day, one or the other of us pushing the carriage.

In other adventures this week we visited Prince’s Street to see the spring flowers and visit the National Gallery. The Waverly-Prince Street crowd was as impressive as usual and we had ice cream just the other side of the of the Scott memorial. Another day we walked a mile or more from St. Leonard’s Lane down the Innocent Railway tramway, once a horse drawn tram from Edinburgh to Duddingston. And on another we, Bo and I, strolled and rode, respectively down to the Meadows. The Meadows is a very large park on the south side of Edinburgh where most of the young guys are playing soccer at any given time on about twenty fields.

Well, I guess that this is your thousand words for the first week. I am including some pictures. If you don’t want to receive this, or if the pictures are too much for your ISP just let me know. Anyone who has specific questions or interests, send them to me and I will try to answer them. Future adventures will include trips to the Castle, to Dirlington, and to Leigh. Tasca says that the zoo here is very good and I might sit in another pub and hoist a pint. Or two.