We went to a wonderful exhibition on Saturday at the City Art Centre of various rather charmingly random objects from different city collections. This is part of an amazing painted panorama of Edinburgh in the late 1700s: rather less built up than it is now.
And this is about 1870 - only ten years before my older grandfather was born, amazingly (to me), since all these fields are built over now and it's hard to believe that it all looked like this when he was a boy. This shows Craigleith Quarry, from which much of the stone for the New Town was taken. It's now completely filled in and there's a shopping centre there. We live not far away. It would be so nice if the city still looked so rural, though inconvenient if our house weren't there any more.
It was a lovely day as we walked home,
through the gardens,
watching people as they paid to climb the Scott Monument, which I did once in my energetic youth but don't plan to do again.
And along we went through another part of the gardens.
We admired the plants still flowering in Coates Crescent. (This is part of the New Town - begun in the 1760s and built of that Craigleith sandstone.) Edinburgh Council has started giving us these beds of herbaceous flowers instead of bedding plants. I like them but they'll be quite labour intensive. I'm interested to see whether they're just dug up after the season or cut down and left for next year.
I'm off to London tomorrow for a flying visit to Daughter 2. I can't wait to see her. Probably this will be my last visit before the baby arrives. Changes, changes... .
Beautiful photos and BLUE sky! Lovely. There are always changes, and babies are positive ones. :)
ReplyDeleteYou pay a flying visit south as we pay a flying visit north today. Will think of you if we stroll through the Botanical Gardens. Probably won't attempt Scott's Monument either.
ReplyDeleteMy mother's parents were born in 1869 and 1871, a fact that always astonished me as a child. I was a late addition to our family, born when my mother was over forty, and she herself was the youngest but one of a very large family, I had uncles and aunts who were older than my other grandmother.
ReplyDeleteChange is inevitable, if not always desirable - my granddaughter is 5 years old today and those years have been full of change, mostly for the better.
Hope all goes well with Daughter 2.
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ReplyDeleteI didn't know you could climb the Scott monument -- we'll have to put that on the list for next time LOL. I hope you've had a wonderful visit with DD2!
ReplyDeleteHi Pam. Thanks for your enquiries as to my whereabouts. I'm easing my way back to blogging. I've just caught up with your doings which has proved a lovely distraction on what would otherwise be a grumpy coach ride home from Bolton. We lost. Miserably. Lxx
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