Long Days

Faithful readers will no doubt recall my Dark Days post in early December, when we received just over 7 hours of daylight. They were indeed dark days. As we approach the summer solstice, just over 4 weeks away, the days are noticably longer. According to this site, we'll receive about 16 3/4 hours of daylight today. In practical terms, that means that the sun is rising at around 4:45am, and setting after 9:30pm. I'll admit this is quite nice in the evening, but it is making it difficult to sleep in. Even for Japhur, who seems to think he'll get fed at 7am now instead of 8am; though he'll eventually adjust. In a month, the sun will be setting after 10pm, though the sky will remain relatively bright for the whole night. Looks like our summer visitors should expect some long days!

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

We finally made it to the Edinburgh Castle, the one we used to live beneath, the one we see practically everyday, the one we hadn't gotten around to visiting yet.

It was not what we expected. From the front gates it looks like you walk straight into a very large building from the parking lot (which used to be the "killing grounds"). But in fact it is just a large gate with a gate-house (should have been obvious) perched on top. (Apparently this is where you get married if you sign up to get married in the "castle".) What we found beyond the gate was a cobblestone road that winds spiral fashion up to the highest point of the extinct volcano that the "castle" is built on. There are several buildings with various functions (not all of them tourist functions) along this road. (Some of the buildings are still in active use by the military). I should also mention that for each of the four courtyards that the road leads you through there is a souvenir shop.

The views from the Castle are amazing--who needs a CN tower when you have a castle atop a volcano. If you click on the photo above you can see our album from the visit.

The Scottish war memorial is perched on the very top of the volcano at the heart of the spiral. It is a chapel with little cubby-holes for each of the Scottish battalions, each cubby hole has a book or two in which all their war dead are listed from World War I to the present. Strangely enough, there are also books of Canadian war dead from battalions that had some sort of Scottish association--either a formerly Scottish place name, like Renfrew and Lanark, or were "Highlanders" or "Scottish". I know nothing about military history ("battalion" is probably even the wrong word), but I found it strange to find Canadians listed at the Scottish memorial. But then there is a very strong connection between Scotland and Canada that we hadn't realised until we got here.

We had a guided tour (free with admission and about every 20 minutes) and he told us the Castle had always been handy in a fight but that the monarchy were not too fond of it because it is cold and blustery. And I can attest that it was much colder and windier up there on the hill than it was down below in the town.

Mike's Visit to Cambridge

I went to Cambridge on Tuesday and gave a talk at the University of Cambridge. It was another in a series of talks that I'm giving on my research. Without a doubt, Cambridge is a beautiful city. I planned my route to take the 45 minute walk from the train station to the University. It was a gorgeous day, making for a great walk through the city. The Computer Laboratory, where I gave my talk, is away from the older portions of the University in a more rural part of town and surrounded by open fields. They're close to the veterinary school hospital as well, so that there's a field with several horses directly across from the the computer lab.

Click on the above picture to see the rest of the photos I took.

Penguin Parade

Alette and I recently became members of the Edinburgh Zoo. It's about a 20-minute walk & bus from our house, making for quite a convenient visit. Unlike some other zoos I've been to, most of the animals seem to have quite spacious surroundings and seem relatively comfortable (at least as far as I can tell). But I'm not here to blog about the zoo; I'm here to tell you of the Penguin Parade.

At 2:15pm everyday, the gate to the penguin enclosure is opened, and eager penguins line up to participate in a 5-minute stroll amongst the humans. The ritual apparently started when the cage door was left open by accident, way back in 1951, and some curious penguins made a break for it. On Sunday, there were 15 penguins that formed the parade, all gentoo penguins, all originally from the Falkland Islands. The zoo has over 100 gentoo penguins (almost 200 penguins altogether), apparently they do well here because the weather here is quite similar to that in the Falkland Islands: i.e. cold, gray, and rainy.

Here's a link to a video of the parade (that we didn't take). And a video of the knighting of one of the king penguins.

Click on the photo above to see the rest of our penguin parade pictures. There are also photos of the beautiful views from the zoo, and of vicunas.

Our Borders Vacation

The weekend before last, Alette, Japhur and I took a short vacation to the Scottish Borders. The map below shows our route, and you can click on the above picture to see our photos.


View Larger Map

One of the highlights was the town of Peebles which is an attractive, historic town. We had lunch there, in what' s now becoming frequent pub visits for Japhur. On Saturday evening, we dipped down into Northumberland, England and stayed at the Coach House Hotel in Crookham. It was very quiet and relaxing with some great views of rolling hills just outside our window. Japhur much preferred this B and B to the less posh pub we stayed at Friday night.
We spent the early part of Sunday on windswept Holy Island (Lindisfarne), which offered some wonderful views of a hill-top castle, surrounded by the sea.

The one disappointment of the trip was Berwick-upon-Tweed; a lovely sounding place, that was quite pretty, but only from far away. Once we arrived in the centre of town, not much was open and there didn't seem to be a decent pub or restaurant for lunch. It did have a nice grassy walk around town, atop the former walls of the city, but that was it. We wished that we'd stayed in Lindisfarne for lunch.

We took the scenic drive home along the coast, stopping in St. Abbs to snap the photo seen above. We think this might be the diving mecca that Tanya and Pat mentioned to us before we left. There was basically nothing in St. Abbs but divers and diver-related establishments.

Other highlights en-route included:
Kailzie Gardens
Traquair House, the "oldest inhabited castle in Scotland", sporting at still-functioning brewery
Priorwood Garden in Melrose
Too many ruined abbeys to name
Forest walks at Harestanes Countryside Visitor Centre
St. Aidan's winery

Showtime (Again)

On Sunday night, I had my second musical performance. This was a solo guitar and singing performance, as a followup to my recent class on Guitar Accompaniment and Interpretation through the Scots Music Group. I performed the song Edward, which Alette and I first heard performed by Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller back in November. It's apparently an Irish version of a Scots ballad (though there seem to be many songs for which the heritage - either Irish or Scottish - is a little unclear).

This performance was at the equivalent of an 'open mic night', known as The Big Seat by the Fire, and took place at St George's West (a mere 10 minute walk from our flat, and shown in the picture above). There were about 20 performers in a very supportive environment. I'd like to return, perhaps next month with some Canadian songs. I'm leaning towards some Neil Young, though Alette is suggesting a Gordon Lightfoot. Any suggestions?

Coast of Fife

On Saturday, Alette, Japhur and I went for a drive along the coast of Fife. This is an area on the east coast of Scotland, just north of Edinburgh. Our route took us from Edinburgh to St Andrew's and we tried to stay as close to the water as possible. Our goals were to take a nice drive, but also to explore areas of the country that might be nice for future, longer visits. Since we don't own a car, we made use of our City Car Club membership, and drove a Vauxhall Corsa Automatic (it also came with clutchless manual) from their East Market location.

It was a beautiful day here on Saturday (sunny and 13 degrees) that made for a great drive. And there were definitely some noticeable changes as we drove along. The first part of our trip, along the Northern coast of the Firth of Forth, just opposite Edinburgh, presented a number of former coal mining towns such as Aberdour, Burntisland, the aptly named Coaltown of Wemyss, and Leven, from which the above picture of Japhur on the beach was taken. While there exist some older structures and architecture, these towns appeared slightly more modern, perhaps from post-coal rebuilding.

We stopped for lunch in Elie, where Japhur had his second visit to a pub, the Ship Inn. This time he was allowed to stay inside with us (as opposed to be relegated to a garden area). Continuing up the coast, we stopped next in Crail. This was a very nice, little town. It didn't seem as crowded or as touristy as the others, perhaps since it did not have much sandy beach (though did have a nice grassy area for walking along the water).

Our final stop was in St Andrew's, a town known to most for either its golfing or its university. The University of St Andrew's is the oldest in Scotland, and third oldest in Britain (after Oxford and Cambridge). It's a very small town, has some nice areas for walking, especially through the University and old castle ruins.

We didn't make it as far as Dundee, but will try to reach it, and even further to Aberdeen on a future visit (likely by train). You can see pictures of our Fife tour by clicking the picture above.