Stirling Castle

Spent day 2 of the midterm at Stirling Castle.
What a place!

We got lucky with the weather. After yesterday's downpour to day was reasonably dry and bright, but there was a stiff breeze which was bitterly cold in Stirling. The peaks to the north are already snow capped.
It sits on top of a glacial crag and completely dominates the local area.
A lot of time and effort (and money) had gone into restoring the castle over the past number of years and it seems to have all been worth it.
One of the more impressive features is the Great Hall. This has been restored to its original look of 1500.

Royal Palace (left) and Great Hall at Stirling Castle

This meant removing the conversion from a hall to an army barracks, restoring the ceiling beams and whitewashing the outer walls with "Royal Gold" lime wash. The final results are impressive.
The audio tour also had lots of historical info presented as 'overheard' conversations between the Queen and her advisers. Cheesy French accents aside (reminded me of Allo Allo) it was quite entertaining.

Fighting a chill wind at Stirling Castle, in front of the Foreworks

Like many of these places there is just too much info to take it all in in one go and we'll have to come back again some time soon. Hopefully it won't be quite so cold and windy so we may get a chance to see the battlements.

Washed away, almost...

Rear of Burn's Cottage

It's school holiday time so naturally the weather is miserable. I cannot remember the last time it rained so persistently for such a long time.
But as it is school holidays we have to do something other than xbox all day, and when Ciaran suggested watching DVDs it wasn't appreciated too much. The other suggestion - take the ferry to Arran and go gorge walking - also wasn't likely to happen but it did suggest going outside wasn't altogether out of the question.
The new Burns Museum was a eventual winner. This Burns is the one of "Auld Lang Syne" at New Years and "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose" from my Leaving Cert fame. I have to admit that I am not a great fan but as a local boy done well he has a huge following here generally, and in Ayrshire in particular.
The new museum was opened in January this year and despite it being so close and us being just down the road for the Eddie Reader concert we had never been.
It was really quite an interesting visit. Unlike most poets who only become famous after they die, Burns was already popular during his lifetime so once he died people did start to collect and preserve items of his. So the museum is full of his original notebooks and the like. It was actually quite interesting.
The weather though was terrible. By this time it had been raining all day, but getting heavier and heavier. The new building is across the road from the Burns birthplace cottage but it was so wet we had to drive across. Once we go there we got soaked getting from the car to the cottage and from the cottage to the gift shop. By the time we got out of the gift shop we were already soaked so we didn't really notice the run back to the car - but the car did steam up as the 3 of us dried off!

Two new names

I have been given two new names this week. These are different from the other names I get called which I tend to just ignore.

The first is Bagheera. This is the panther from The Jungle Book.

This is the name traditionally given to assistant Cub leaders. This is down to the original connections between Kipling and Baden-Powell. When Baden-Powell was developing scouting for younger boys he based it on Kipling's Jungle Book stories, specifically "Mowgli's Brothers". The leaders still take their names from the main characters in the story.

It seems Akela is fairly confident that my application will go through. I certainly got that impression from the interview I had on Wednesday night. I now have study modules to work through...

The second is "Juror #6". It have been called up as juror in an assault, GBH and attempted murder case. They are hoping that it will only take 4 days but after day 1 yesterday, a short day as the Sheriff like to get away quick on a Friday, only the first prosecution witness has been done, and the second prosecution witness will have their cross starting Monday morning.