Edinburgh Sunday

This morning I planned to go Holyrood Palace ( Lizzie’s home when she visits Edinburgh for 1 week to host a garden party and give out some gongs each year. It is used for other things – the Pope is visiting in a few weeks and he will stay there) first, then walk up the hill behind to Arthur’s Seat. I took a while to get going , stopped on the way for a map of bus routes, looked in a few shop windows and before I got there it was morning tea time. No one told me that Edinburgh weather is as notorious as Melbourne for changing rapidly. At 10.30 I was hot in my shirt but by 11, waiting in the forecourt of the palace for a guided tour of the Abbey ruins to start, the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees. I had bought in Manchester a new zippered jacket that squashes up into a tiny ball and is quite warm but it was not enough. The tour was interesting. Maybe a theme of photos this trip will be arches – but there has to be more than 1 arch in the photo. Then I went through the palace. Mary queen of Scots lived there for 5 years and various other kings and queens spent time there. I get confused with the kings – eg. There is a James who is know as James 2 to the English but James 7 to the Scots. It was opulent but I was not really in the mood. I had a quick walk around the beautiful gardens. The thing that I found most striking was how close it was to this rugged outcrop of grass and rock. I was way too cold to walk on an exposed windy hillside so decided to walk quickly back to my flat to get some more clothes. Beside which it was about 12.30

I passed a seafood restaurant that I had read about on the way so thought ‘why not?’ It was nice and quite reasonably priced. Then I changed my plans again and went to the National Gallery of Scotland. The sun was trying to appear, it did not look like snow like the Scottish tour guide thought earlier. The ground floor rooms have been made to look like they would have in the 1840’s. Pictures are hung close together on dark red walls, often one above the other. There are statues and other fancy things around. I quite liked looking at the Scottish art section. There were paintings of the rugged parts of Scotland and of some of the people I had heard about in Holyrood Palace. Then I did hurry back to my little flat