Another week of joy and happiness is over. The early weeding this week, the Tesco and Sainsbury shopping all wore me out, not helped by having to hoover, change bed, laundry, and cook also all week. Al these girl jobs and only I to do them. It is so wearing...
So I spent time looking through old, very old, pictures you may have seen before. Some were taken on the old Minolta B.D. that's Before Digital. Playing around with them can be beneficial to them, but not always. This one of St Giles Kirk must have been taken from Calton Hill, two or three others were, and I actually like it. Calton Hill has been a playground for Edinburgh folk for many a day, and today it continues the dubious honour of having many a strange occurrence occur there. This did not happen on the day I ventured up the hill, too cold that day. Kings of old allowed sport, archery and such like, the people preferred open-air theatre and debauchery. The imitation Parthenon still stands, well around ten pillars at least. This is the 'National Monument' designed to commemorate the Scottish servicemen who died during the Napoleonic Wars. It ran out of money in 1829 and work has as yet not restarted.
Advocates Close in the high Street is a favourite place to picture. Work has meant such a pic may no longer be possible, however, this is one of a great many closes that go from the 'Royal Mile' down the High Street to Holyrood. Old Edinburgh being built on a thin stretch of land the buildings tended to rise up higher and higher, ten stories not being unusual. We can see the slope away to the north from this angle. The memorial to Sir Walter Scott stands in the distance. Scott invented the modern 'traditional Scot.' Tartan and romantic Highlanders and all the half truths and lies that accompany his determined effort to make Scotland well known, but part of Greater England! He sold us out and still did not make enough money from his books to pay his debts. Advocates Close was named for the Lord Advocate, James Stewart, a fine residence in his day, later a slum and now renovated, and expensive I bet.
Abraham Lincoln stands atop this memorial to the Scottish American Soldiers who fought in the US Civil War. Erected in 1893 with several of these men buried underneath or nearby, it shows Lincoln at the top, a freed Black slave with a book, revealing he is now educated at the base. It is the only such memorial outside of the US.
How did I climb hills? This was taken ten years ago when my mother died. One day my brother drove us around to get a feel for the place as it had become. We stopped here, Salisbury Crags to the right, castle and all in front. A popular view for those with expensive cameras!
Edinburgh Zoo is famous for the Penguin enclosure. I took this 'Rockhopper Penguin' pic at the time they were renovating the place. I can assure you penguins smell a great deal when up close. One of my nieces did a year at the zoo when 16, this included 6 weeks with penguins. As she got on the bus going home the drivers would say "You, upstairs!" No-one sat near her.
