Drookit

We had friends for the weekend and took the train down to Galashiels to see the new(ish) building that was designed to house the Great Tapestry of Scotland. We'd seen the tapestry (actually, it's embroidery) before, but not for a while, and not in this building. We liked the building a lot - well done to the architects. 

The tapestry itself was the idea of the writer Alexander McColl Smith, who was inspired by an earlier one, the Prestonpans (not actually a) Tapestry (which was sort of inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry (not really a tapestry either)). The Prestonpans one depicts the events before, during and after the Battle of Prestonpans, which was when Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops (mainly Highlanders who supported the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of Britain) defeated the English (plus mainly Lowland Scots). There are now various other similar tapestries in other parts of Scotland (and beyond, for all I know).

Anyway, this non-tapestry depicts the history of Scotland from the formation of the land - earthquakes etc - to the modern day, with lots of developments, battles, inventions and so on, in between. 

The embroidery was done by groups of mainly (but not exclusively) women volunteers, each group doing one of the 161 panels.  These are now joined together. One of them was stolen from Kirkcaldy Art Gallery in 2015 (I mean, who would?) and was never found, so the original stitchers painstakingly recreated it. 

The detail in the panels is amazing. Look at this kilt! 

And the herringbone tweed jacket.

And the socks. 

This is the whole panel, which shows traditional Scottish sports. 

This one shows the woollen industry in the Lowlands, famously in Paisley, where shawls were made. These were inspired by Indian or Persian patterns with the teardrop shape - known (here, anyway) as Paisley patterns to this day. 

The weather has been horrendously wet, but we went to the Botanics yesterday anyway, along with many drookit tourists. "Drookit" means "drenched" but is (in my opinion) much more expressive, like so many Scottish words. We went equipped with waterproofs and an umbrella but still had to change our lower halves when we got home. 

But these single peonies weren't too battered by the rain, 

and the blue poppies were just about hanging on. 

One has now, however, had enough of rain. We, our gardens and our spirits are more than sufficiently drookit.