Scottish people, including some women

Goodness, I now feel rather embarrassed, as if my previous post was saying that I was going to go away unless lots of people told me that they loved me. That's not what I meant at all. But thank you so much to those who said they'd miss my meanderings. It's given me food for thought! 

On Saturday we were at a surprise 70th birthday party for one of the friends of our youth. Here you can sort of see her at the door, having been handed some flowers and going "Argh!" as she sees us all standing there and bursting into "Happy Birthday". It was really lovely to see her (she lives some distance away) and the others of our local group of (once) young people who had reassembled from various parts, two of them from 400 miles away in the south of England.

Today was cold and drizzly so I took myself to the Portrait Gallery to have a wander around. They have an exhibition called "Scottish Heroes and Heroines" or something of the sort. It was good that women were included. It's about time! Here's Thomas Carlyle, looking very pleased with himself.

This is Flora Stevenson, about whom I knew nothing except that there's a primary school named after her. It turns out that she was the first woman elected to a school board after the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act, which made primary education mandatory (good) but said it had to be exclusively in English, not Gaelic - which led to a major decline in Gaelic speaking (bad). Not that Gaelic was ever spoken widely as far south as this. Anyway, this wasn't Flora's fault. She was then the first woman to chair the Edinburgh School Board and did lots of other voluntary and worthwhile stuff.

I love this: the notice beside the painting of David Roberts (1796-1864) by Robert Scott Lauder says that he's in his traveller's disguise, "worn to look inconspicuous"! It was probably true when he was travelling in the Middle East but he rather fancies himself in it, don't you think?.

Here's James Boswell. I've read so much of his diary writings in the past few years: his Edinburgh diaries, his London diaries and his account of his journey to the Hebrides with Dr Johnson. I've also read Dr Johnson's own account. I like this portrait of the young James, looking - suspiciously? calculatingly? sadly? guiltily? (he had quite a bit to feel guilty about) - at the painter. He didn't know at that point how famous he was going to become. I wonder if he would have been surprised to find himself there.

And look at poor John Runciman in his self-portrait - he'd been bullied by a jealous painting rival, destroyed most of his work and then died of TB at the age of 24. So sad! This is one of the few of his paintings to survive.

On the way out, I said hello to Robert Burns, who probably didn't look like this at all (there are no portraits of him from his lifetime), and who would also have been surprised, I imagine, to see this statue with its wreaths celebrating the recent Burns Night.

See? A totally grandchildless post.

(Ooh, there's a fox barking outside the study window. This has happened a lot recently. Can it be the mating season already? Bit chilly, I'd have thought. (Have just Googled it, and yes, it's the start of the mating season.))