Days off

On Saturday we took ourselves on a little train trip to Berwick, just three miles over the border into England. Berwick was fiercely contested between Scotland and England for many years. It's been English since 1482, when Richard of Gloucester (the rotter) captured it from us. It has fairly intact medieval city walls - built to keep the Scots out. We had a pleasant walk around these.

I like the way the town has been built haphazardly, with things at different angles to one another.

The walls had rooms built into them but I think it must have been fairly chilly in there as they kept guard.

Berwick has a harbour, which I suppose is what made it desirable to both sides. I like the name of the boat. (Leith is in Edinburgh.)

Then today, back home, we went to the museum - without children (for once) - and were able to look about more than usual. These scent bottles are displayed at the cafe and I took time to read that they're part of a collection of 300 belonging to Ida Pappenheim, who was born in 1867 and lived in Vienna. She died in 1938. Her bottles were stored in a cellar during the war and most of them survived. Her daughter Marianne came to Edinburgh in 1945 as a translator and donated the bottles to the museum in 1971. I wonder why. Did she have no children, or did she have children who weren't interested in them?

I think they're very pretty, but 1971 was before the revival in the fashion for eighteenth and nineteenth century things - which are now unfashionable again, though I still like them. (But then, I'm no longer young.)

We inspected the two recently-opened galleries, from which I would like this plate, please. It claims to have been made about 1430 and is in stonkingly good condition - not a chip. Personally I would have estimated 1985, which is why I wouldn't get a job as a museum curator with my current knowledge about ceramics. But it would look lovely in my sitting room anyway.