Tuesday 20 September 2011

A Close Secret

I love the windy closes that extend away from Edinburgh's Royal Mile like veins on a leaf. Their unassuming, dark entrances provide no clue as to what treasures lie beyond. I chanced upon this one on a wander while on the phone.

Dunbar's Close garden, off the Royal Mile
I had to draw on powerful reserves of altruism in order to blog about this peaceful plot of orderly vegetation; perhaps a secret garden should by definition be a private pleasure, lest it become, simply, a known garden. Not to be confused with a gnome garden.


Anyway, I highly recommend Dunbar's Close for those weary of foot or spirit - or those who entertain fantasies of being a seventeenth-century lady, taking turns about the garden before finding a sunny patch to do some stitching. 

Salisbury Crags
A little while down the Mile, the landscape in front of the Parliament ('here for tae represent aw Scotlan's folk') is provides a more dramatic background to my knitting. As for what I'm working on - that is a close secret too, for the moment.

Sunday 4 September 2011

A Day at the Museum

The entrance hall - note the sad lack of fish! The coin-dodging carp that used to take up much of this space were the main attraction of the museum for me as a child.
The National Museum of Scotland reopened this summer after a three year refurbishment project. As far as I can recall, the last time I visited it was on an ill-fated semi-date: the guy was a smoker, which I disapproved of, so I playfully hid his cigarettes in the Ivy Wu Gallery, which he disapproved of. Luckily there was no awkward games of hunt-the-tobacco when I went yesterday with my friend Alice - just lots of marvellous creatures and wondrous objects.
A massive prehistoric deer
A glowering T-Rex
An astronomically interesting room...
... replete with astrolabes and other other-worldly paraphernalia for measuring other worlds

A giant trilobite scuttling up a wall
Ptiny pterosaurs flapping overhead
There were details I'd forgotten I remembered from the museum's previous incarnation, like these beautiful Victorian radiators wrapped around columns. 
It was a super day; I will have to go back when I am less cold-y and more able to take everything in. Have you had any exciting days out recently? Leave a comment and let me know! In the meantime, I plan to curl up, drink cinnamon tea and knit my snuffles away - I hope you're all having lovely Sundays.
Plenty of fun to be had in the gift shop.



Friday 2 September 2011

Creak

It's been such an horrifically long time since I last posted, I feel like the only news that would justify the silence would be something along the line of, 'I gave birth to twins, won a sea battle, and was additionally elected Pope'. Instead I have nothing of real interest to report- I've just been rather down over the past few months, and haven't felt much like knitting. Actually, that's not quite true - there have been a couple of abortive projects that I might share with you - but in general, I've been going through a real creative dry spell. This morning, though, I turned up 24 hours early for a breakfast appointment, and thought I might gear up the creaky cranks of the ole blog machine. I'm using my unexpected solitude to swatch for Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier (not sure how to do the link on my iPhone).

Edited to add photo.
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