I visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse (see previous post) last Sunday morning and I had all kinds of plans about how I was going to spend the rest of the day. It involved buses and going down to the docks. But once I saw Holyrood Park, my plans went out the window. Seriously, what choice did I have? It's breathtaking.
So I went back to my hotel to change into jeans and running shoes, got some lunch, and came back to the park. I stood at the bottom of the hill, which Wikipedia tells me is called Arthur's Seat. From the bottom it looks like this.
I started climbing on of the lower trails. I was interested in the view but wanted to be able to feel my legs the next morning, so I stayed away from the rather vertical paths that went up to the top of the hill. From part way up you get a lovely view of the park, palace, and a little bit of the harbour.
And I kept on going. Edinburgh Castle looks like this from up there.
Once I got to the highest part of the path I sat on a rock to have a rest and do the only logical thing one does after climbing a big rock.
I knit.
Once I got around to the other side of the hill, I encountered this valley.
It was a beautiful way to spend an afternoon.
Holyroodhouse is a smaller royal palace but that makes it manageable. By the time you feel like your brain can't take anymore history, you're in the gardens and almost done your visit. There's no photos allowed in the state apartments, but you can photograph the outside. Here's the main entrance.
There's also a lovely fountain in the forecourt.
My favourite part of the whole palace is this very small hill in the back garden. There are lots of rumours about what it could be- ancient burial, cache of treasures, etc.
The truth? It was created by the request of Prince Albert. He wanted the children to have a mini-hill to play on instead of the large hills in the park (you can see them in the background). It has been kept because it is used during the Queen's garden parties in the summer. A man stands on the little hill so he can see the back steps from the palace and cue the band when the Queen starts her descent down them. Love it.
I'm finding that I don't have a lot to say, so I'll simply say that if you're in Edinburgh you should visit Holyrood.
The Palace of Holyrood is the Queen's official residence in Scotland (which will be my nexpt post) but the property was originally home to an abbey. It was partially demolished and abandoned centuries ago because it kept being raided by troops during English and Scottish battles (call it a victim of back-and-forth changes in religion that mark UK history). It has been left standing as a ruin and many artists have been inspired by it over the years. It is easy to see why.
This window used to have stained glass in it and was a later addition to the church. Originally, the main area of the church was twice the size it is today.
There have been a number of alterations to the abbey, some of them decorative and others were structural. Flying buttresses were added to it when it became appartent that the walls were slowly collapsing.
There also would have been massive pillars through-out the church to hold up the ceiling. Some of them are still standing, while for others only stubs remain.
The changing weather and the amazing view meant I took a lot of photos from the castle. Here are a few.
I included this one because of the green Jaguar on the road. See it?
It's driving up the road backwards... I don't know why.
I enjoyed my visit to Edinburgh Castle.
It's a good mix of history and scenic views. My guide was Colin and he was fantastic for three reasons. He knew what he was talking about, he was very funny, and he looked good in a windbreaker and a kilt.
That's not easy to do.
The sky was clear when I walked up to the castle. It started raining during the tour, so I had to stand in the rain in the very long line to see the Scottish Crown Jewels (which are slightly disappointing, to be honest). I really enjoyed the Scottish National War Memorial. You can't take any photos inside it, so I don't have any pics of the beautiful stain glass (which is probably the most stunning depiction of a tank that I've ever seen). This is the outside of the building.
The Great Hall's ceiling was built by ship-makers and it shows.
Stunning.
The weather continued to spit for the rest of the day, but the fog did disappear after lunch so I could admire the view of the city from the castle.
I thought the best way to celebrate the end of my internship (and finishing school) was to take a trip out of London for the weekend. There was no way I could live in the UK without going to Scotland, so I took a trip over Easter weekend to Edinburgh. I just wanted to get a feeling of the city- there was no way I could see all the main tourist attractions in a few days.
The train ride up was an adventure. Ask me about it when I get back and I'll give you the full story, but here's the abreviated version. I tried one train but most of the seats were reserved, so there wasn't anywhere for me to sit. I got on a second train and couldn't get a seat, so I sat on my suitcase for the trip (slightly under four and a half hours).
The train made a few stops on the way up to Scotland and the first stop was Peterborough. Somewhere between eight to ten military men (not in uniform) got on the train and crammed themselves in the same area I was. They got on the train with their huge packs and their (second) 12-pack of Strongbow. They took an interest in my knitting and then started asking me about Canada. Some of the questions made sense 'why do you have a leaf on your flag?', for example, others were kind of random, like 'what's kool-aid?' and 'America has baby ruth chocolate bars, why don't you?'. They were also asking about Ice Road Truckers- the show airs over here and everyone seems to watch it (very random). But their questions helped an hour pass by quickly. My trip also featured children throwing up in the train car (which is why I stood the whole way, even when seats started to open up). And lots of other things. But on to the part of the story with photos...
Standing next to the doors means you can take photos easily. And gawk at the scenery, which featured sheep! Lots of them.
The fog closed in once we got near the Scottish border. That should have been my indication that the weather forecasts of sun all weekend were lies.
I had another Bryant and May moment back when I visited Camden Market. One of the stalls was a lovely used book store and I bought a copy of one of the books in the series, 'Full Dark House'. I've been buying some of them in Britain because it's a different publisher over here and I love the covers.
So book in hand, I walked down the road to Mornington Cresent tube station (that section of the Northern Line was closed that particular weekend, so I had to head in that direction for a bus anyway). In the earlier Bryant and May books, their headquatres is in the offices above this tube station. So I had to take this photo.
If you ever want complete strangers to look at you like you are insane, I highly recommend holding up a book in the direction of a closed tube station and taking photos. Seriously people, haven't you heard of blogging?
After going to the Sherlock Holmes Museum (see previous post), Miss Bowser and I spent the afternoon in Hyde Park. We sat on the grass and I taught Jenn how to knit (she's a natural). Once the lesson was done we went for a wander around the park.
In front of the Albert Memorial (which is a shiny, gold momument that embodies Victorian design) we found a game of ball hockey. We sat on the steps and watched. One of the players had a Habs jersey on. Jenn took photos of them. I took photos of the nets.
Take another look at that photo. Notice the proportion of the net to the leg of the goalie (who had no blocker and a regular stick, which means you're not really goalie in my opinion, but that's beside the point).
Tiny hockey nets! So very cute and I imagine very difficult to score on. So it was a taste of home- sort of.
Generally, I avoid 'tourist' museums like the plague. You know the type- museums that only foreigners go to that often celebrate a ficticious person or place (I don't see the appeal of the Anne of Green Gables House, for example). But I had to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, even though it is incredibly tacky. It's set up as Homes' flat at 221B Baker St. (an address that doesn't really exist). It looks like this, with flat and gift shop side by side.
The half the rooms are set up to as the rooms inhabited by Holmes and Watson. Such as this one.
The other half are filled with wax and plaster mannequins depicting famous scenes from the stories. They are really creepy... but old fashioned mannequins scare me all the time, for both aesthetic and conservation reasons. Here's one example.
There is a guest book to sign. My friend Jenn was kind enough to come with me, we both signed the guest book.
And we both got to meet 'Dr. Watson' and got photos taken with him
I really wanted him to drop character and ask this man what it's like to pretend to be a fictional person for your career, but he was waiting for his tea so we didn't want to bother him. The rooms are full of brick-a-brack to make the space feel real. This was my favourite detail.
Just what you'd find in anyone else's home.
So I'm a little behind on my posts and a lot has happened. My here's a recap of the last three weeks of my internship. I was with the tapestry team.
Week thirteen was spent removing tapestries from the Great Watching Chamber from the Tudor route. They are being removed because the exterior of the building is having extensive works for the rest of the year. Building works create dust and that makes conservators worry, since they are really old and fragile. Tapestries look more robust than they actually are- the number one lesson I learned about tapestry conservation is your stitches have to be *really* tight to withstand the stress of hanging on a wall.
Tapestry removal has been perfected at Hampton Court because they have a lot of large, old tapestries. I won't give you all the details but I will say that removal involves three scaffolds and a lot of people. I can also say that standing on the top of a scaffold when a a warder decides to open a door into it is not a lot of fun. Thankfully we weren't moving anything at the time, or it would have gone crashing to the floor.
Weeks fourteen and fifteen were split between a tapestry sampler (practicing stitching techniques used in tapestry conservation) and prepping a tapestry for wash. This tapestry is from a series of seven depicting stories of Alexander. These tapestries were bought by the Royal Family sometime in the early 1700's and have always hung in the Queen's Gallery in Queen Mary II's wing of the palace. This is very unusual because Kings and Queens often redecorated by moving tapestries between rooms and between palaces.
This particular tapestry has never been fully conserved and it will probably take two or three years to complete the work. The wash itself happens in May- it will remove hundred of years of dirt from the surface and rehydrate the fibres (right now it feels very crispy). My job involved removing old patches from the reverse side and here's a photo of it (and that's Christine- we love her).
And here is a photo of my tapestry sampler, worked on a conservation loom.
Yesterday I went back to the Fusiliers Musuem for one last day. Most of my time was spent with George. Now that he's all finished (except for his medals, which are arriving on Tuesday) he is all complete. Given that the museum is now semi-open to the public (it's open except for the days work is going on) I feel like it's okay to show you George.
This is what he looks like without all of his accessories.
This is what he looks like with everything, including his bearskin.
That bearskin is, to be polite, revolting. It's shedding, smelly, and was formerly an insect home. But it's a conservator's job to make the revolting presentable, so we did our best. It has been thouroughly brushed, vacuumed, and brushed again so all of the hairs are roughly pointing down. And the case is sealed, so the general public doesn't have to smell it. But when I had to brush the back of it after it was installed, which means I practically had to stick my face in it? Eww.
And my supervisor introduced me to the best tool to brush out fur. A plain, everyday (clean!) kitchen fork. Sounds crazy but it works.
I've been writing very girly posts lately. I think it's time I tip the scale back in the other direction. Beer.
As many of you know I've had some health problems that limited my diet and that included no beer. When I got to England, I still was not having any beer. No beer in the UK is no fun for me, so I conducted a little experiment way back when my friend Sam came over from Amsterdam for a visit. I had a half pint and everything was okay. No stomach screaming at me. So very modest beer drinking has occurred ever since. Here are most of the beers I've tried.
Badger Dandelion Organic Ale
I chose this because it sounded like it would either be fantastic or terrible. It is fantastic. Very similar to othe organic ales, like Mill Street's, but the dandelion adds another flavour which is hard to describe. Maybe something that tastes like honey without being really sweet.
The Greenwich Brewery's Meantime Raspberry Ale
I know you can get some of the Meantime ales back home, but I wasn't sure if this one was available so I tried it. I find that fruity beers are either have a good balance of flavours or are way too fruity. This one was okay, but not the best I've had.
The Co-operative Bumble Bee Honey Ale
The Co-operative is a chain of grocery stores who also own funeral homes (very random). This was a good dessert beer- it went very nicely with the peanut butter cookies I was making (and eating). However, this is a big bottle of beer and it's too sweet to drink a lot of it at once. If they bottled it in little bottles (think the size that Mill Street originally had for their Organic Beer or even a stubby) that would be much better.
Fuller's Discovery
Louise, the other intern at work and my partner-in-crime for the Royal Fusiliers Museum installation, got very excited when I told her Canadian girls drink beer. So after the last day of installation she took me to the nearest pub by the Tower of London. It has the best name ever.
I had two pints of this.
Fuller's is an old independent brewery in London and it is served everywhere. Discovery is one of their newer beers (being developed in the 1980's). It is a blonde ale and it is fantastic. Very drinkable beer. Good to sip while looking up things on Louise's i-phone and getting her to like hockey- a perfectly natural thing to do in a London pub, right?
Last weekend was Mother's Day in the UK and to celebrate Hampton Court held its annual 'Floromania' event. Queen Mary's wing of the palace is transformed with floral arrangements. The space ends up looking something like this.
This year's theme was 'Myths and Legends'. Some interpreted this better than others. We were impressed by 'Robin Hood'.
My personal favourite was 'Atlas'.
Although the theme didn't matter to me nearly as much as looking at pretty flowers as a way to celebrate spring.
