Month: March 2021

Quietened – and thankful

~ windinmywheels ~ 4 Comments

I’ve stayed fairly close to home base today, largely watching the ever-changing skyline here, as the short-term ‘zonking’ effects of my first Covid-jab kicked in. I want to record here that, in company with millions, my overwhelming thought about the vaccination, and the paid and volunteer-staffed processes that help administer it, is of profound gratitude. Thank you to all who are working to ensure protection and gradual restoration to ‘normal’ life. And thanks to those who work night and day to help and comfort all affected by coronavirus – through illness, loss and bereavement 🙏

Budding – and finding one’s feet

~ windinmywheels ~ 2 Comments

Of the many budding-new-life Springtime images I’ve seen today, this one in the storyline of @phonophotos_1k on Instagram moved my soul the most, together with a few from my garden here …

Is there anything, really, quite so heartening and miraculous as the annual budding cycle in the returning of Spring? – (unless you happened to be watching telly a little earlier and saw a lamb tottering to its little feet about 30 seconds after it arrived in the world!)

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Lungs full of fresh air

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This sturdy little set of wheels is such a friend! After such a long lockdown already, the lungs full of fresh air facilitated by four or five miles out and about on my Brompton create serotonin quicker than most anything else I can think of. You know it’s true because you can’t stop smiling, and feel altogether 100 percent better afterwards!

Duddingston

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click photos once or twice to enlarge

When it looks like this from inside it’s time to get one’s skates on and get outside! It’s still decidedly nippy here, but there are sights and sounds that chase the chill …

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Here is Queen’s Drive in Holyrood Park – 2 or 3 minutes walk from home in St Leonard’s Crag Tower in the trees on the left; Calton Hill with its fabulous views of the Firth of Forth straight on (the ‘new’ Scottish Parliament buildings just around the corner in this photo); Salisbury Crags and the famous Arthur’s Seat – an extinct volcano that erupted 340 million years ago – on the right

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Edinburgh Geological Society’s website is a must. It says of Salisbury Crags: ‘The Crags are a single sheet of tough dolerite rock, which is about 325 million years old. This dolerite formed long after the eruption of the Arthur’s Seat volcano, by the process of magma intrusion deep underground – this was not a volcano.’

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Heading down towards Duddingston Loch – this area has been a haven for good social distancing during the Covid-19 related lockdown of 2020 / 2021 as there are acres of space in which to exercise and thrive in sea-blown fresh air

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Duddingston Loch – the ice rink of the famous Duddingston Curling Society (see below)

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A tiny village with jaw-dropping recorded history – JMW Turner admired the Minister’s paintings when he visited, and Sir Walter Scott was a Church Elder here

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‘In this house on 19th September 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart held his Council of War before the battle of Prestonpans’

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I wonder how often conversation at the dining table here might have included ‘when Bonnie Prince Charlie …’ ?

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‘Under the (Arthur’s) Seat beside the (Loch) Water makes a Home for A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns’ – The Reverend John Thomson, Minister here between 1805-1840 referred to his parishioners as ‘ma bairns’ – hence the Scottish expression ‘we’re Jock Tamson’s bairns’

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A village centre record of Bronze Age Settlements circa 800 BC

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Jacobite Headquarters, 1745

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Beautiful old Edinburgh signage

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Duddingston Kirk

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A reflective space

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‘Fire made the seat beside the water’ – Arthur’s Seat, the volcano that erupted 340 million years ago!

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‘Time like an ever flowing stream’ …

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Kirkyard snowdrops

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Similar to memorials found in Greyfriars Kirkyard – open and graphic acknowledgement of human mortality

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Insignia Cornutorum – I haven’t found a record of what this means – and can proffer only a guess that a rough translation may suggest something along the lines of ‘cornucopia’ or ‘horn of plenty.’ I’d be glad to have any feedback from informed sources

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Duddingston Loch from the Kirkyard

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‘Here are deposited the mortal remains of The Rev. Macintosh Mackay. LLD (Doctor of Laws) – Minister successively of Laggan and Dunoon, at Melbourne and Sydney and at Target in Harris and Moderator in 1840 of the Free Church of Scotland. Born at Dilardbec, Edrachillis, Sutherlandshire, he died at Portobello 17th May 1873 in the 80th year of his age and the 48th of his Ministry. A man distinguished for extensive erudition; a humble Christian, an able Pastor, profound in his views of Devine Truth, rich in Christian experience, abundant and unwearied in labours, the first Gaelic Scholar of the day, he completed in 1828 the Highland Society’s Gaelic Dictionary. His life of self denial and devotion to his countrymen rendered his influence paramount among Highlanders and embalmed his memory in their hearts’

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James Browne LLD Advocate, Author of “History of the Highlands” who died in April 1841 aged 48 – and his wife, parents, sons – one of whom drowned at age 16 in the Forth, sister (?), and daughter – the widow of James Grant, author of “Romance of War”

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‘Sacred to the Memory of John Gerard of Rochsoles in the County of Lanark …

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… Lieutenant-Colonel in the Service of The Honourable East India Company. Late Adjutant-General to the Bengal Army during all Lord Lake’s Campaigns: whose valour and ability drew forth the praise of Government and his Country at the Storming of Seringapatam in 1799. The Battles of Delhi, Agra and Laswaree in 1808 and the Siege of Bhurtpore in 1804, and who subsequently lived respected and honoured in his native Country of Scotland, and died at Edinburgh on the 17th April 1824 aged 59 years. This monument is erected by his eldest surviving son Archibald Gerard, February 1840′

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Heathers about the entrance …

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and the direction of sea and sky …

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evening sunlight draws the colour in stone …

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… and at the Kirkyard gate – the ‘jougs’ – a punishment collar (which probably encouraged some pretty good behaviour)

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… a lantern unto Royal pathways …

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… and a loch now designated as a bird sanctuary, one of the most tranquil imaginable …

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… where some of the (huge) swans appear to enjoy noisy water skiing …

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… and the buds of Spring conjure thoughts of future picnics and time to reflect ever more deeply on the enormity of the history of this place: did JMW Turner sketch a quick likeness of this scene, do you think?

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… and onwards and upwards along Queen’s Drive heading back to the Crags and supper …

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Edinburgh life. In the Spring of 2021

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Sights for sore eyes!

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Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street Gardens

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Lovers of history, architecture, all things cosmopolitan, ever changing colours and light can’t help themselves feeling at home in Edinburgh.

A routine eye test became so much more than just a trip to an optician. There and back afforded ‘sights for sore eyes’ on a Spring morning when it felt truly good to be here.

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Rooted

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Heavens, these little balcony plants have taken a battering in the last couple of days. I keep checking they’ve not blown away altogether. They’re sturdy little things though. Out of focus here, in the stiff wind. But rooted.

And it strikes me that I’m looking at metaphor. Humankind the world over has taken a battering in the last 12 months – illness, isolation, economic insecurity, death, bereavement and a share of consequent and wholly understandable hopelessness. Someone tweeted earlier today that they’d not been touched by another since last October!

We’ve checked our own sanity sometimes, thinking it too might well have blown away. We’ve had to learn to hope for the coming of a future that won’t include millions of loved ones; a life that makes demands upon us we hadn’t been anticipating.

But we’ve discovered afresh, albeit not always quite in focus, that even in the stiffest winds the life of our humankind has deep roots – deeper, perhaps, than we knew before. And Spring pushes forth 🌱

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