Walking again

Went out for a 'stroll' today.
My ankle is still quite sore and limiting what I can get up to but it has been improving.
We went out to Culzean so Ciaran could collect some rocks. He's still got that amateur geologist interest in collecting stones from the shore.
While he was scrambling Fiona and I decided to have a wee rest here and look out over the firth of Clyde towards Arran.
Sadly you cannot see Arran due to the rain clouds rolling in which we got to experience first-hand for ourselves a few minutes later.
Cue quick walk to the tearoom and an overpriced pot of tea.

Busy Day

Ciaran and I spent the day in Edinburgh.

from wiki since we were not allowed to take pics

At his suggestion we went to see Mary King's Close. This had all sorts or rumours about it. A close ( in this sense) is a narrow street running between rows of buildings, essentially an alleyway. The story I heard when living in Edinburgh was that this street was abandoned in order to contain the plague. The buildings at either end were collapsed and the residents left to starve. The only access was from the basement of the city Chambers, which had been built over the original site. All the talk was of ghosts so I was looking forward to a visit on a Friday the 13th!
The first thing I learned was that what I had heard was almost all false.
There was plague, but the close was actually quite an affluent area, and at one point the second widest street in Edinburgh (not saying much at only about 10 feet).
The geology is important. Edinburgh (the old town) is built on a glacial crag and tail. The castle sits on the crag and the High Street (Royal Mile) runs down the tail. Naturally buildings face the street, with more joined on behind them. These ones behind are taller as they sit lower, off the tail with narrow closes to provide access. The closes are quite steep as they run down off the tail to normal ground level. As more and more people arrived (80000 by the 18th century), these buildings got higher, eventually being as much as 8 storeys high. Then they wanted to build the Royal Exchange and decided to flatten some of the buildings by vaulting over the closes. The people were all moved out as its illegal to live underground in Scotland. The Exchange was built and it later became the City Chambers. Due to the vaulting the lower levels of some of the buildings and the actual street level of these closes were retained. The tour allows you to go through some of the buildings and walk along the close.The end result is quite well preserved snapshot of poorer life in the 18th century.
It was interesting to hear how people lived at that time. There were bands of affluence. The lowest were the poorest of the poor - squalor and filth. As you went up the money increased but the very top were also poor as the thatch let in water! Due to the narrowness of the close, and the height of the buildings very little light made it down into the close so the dominant smell was fish oil used in the candles, sewage from the chamber pots thrown out the door, and the smell of people and animals in close quarters.
Sadly no pictures as there are restrictions on pictures around government buildings and as this is actually underneath...

After the close we headed up to the castle. It definitely impressive but I still think I prefer Stirling Castle. This is definitely a military castle, with the focus on the war history. Still very interesting and the Scottish crown jewels and the stone of destiny are there. I do have to admit that we were killing time. Our train ticket restricted our travel time to be outwith normal commuting time. So we had to wait until 1800 before we could get a train home.

We finally headed for the train, getting back to the station at about 1750, to find out that the quick train was still off limits until 1830. We could get the slow scenic train at 1755 but it took almost 40 minutes longer. Since we had another train once we got back to Glasgow I decided to wait for the quick train.
What to do for half and hour? Why climb the Scott monument of course! Just the thing to do with a sore ankle.

We started up to the first platform. Spiral staircases will make you dizzy of you go too fast. after some pics on that level on to the next one. And then with an almost audible pop of a cork in a bottle I was on the highest platform after coming through what was a worryingly narrow final few steps. All 287 steps. After squeezing around the platform it was back through the eye of the needle and back down. This time my sore ankle was on the inside of the spiral where the weakened ligaments had to contend with a narrow wedge of step.
Back in time for the train. As Wallace (of Grommet and not "Freeeedommmmm" fame) would say, a Grand day out.