The purpose of this blog is to record my year in Scotland. This blog will be a challenge for me as I’ve never been much of a journal keeper. However, there’s always time for firsts of everything, and this year has been a good one so far for those. I’ve moved countries, eaten haggis (not entirely convinced by it yet), danced a ceilidh (learned how to spell ceilidh) and, thanks to the Scots Australian Council and the Royal Bank of Scotland began a Masters degree.
So, I should have started this blog at least a month ago. Instead I enjoyed the Edinburgh Festival, having our first house guests Dave and Jude, and Kim and John, did a lot of reading (mostly fiction based in Scotland) and started to become familiar with the city I now call home.
For a quick recap of the last couple of months:
The festival was amazing. It was quite impossible for me to comprehend the scale of the festival prior to landing in the middle of it. Its not just one festival - there’s the Festival of Spirituality and Peace, the Jazz Festival, the Book Festival, the Mela Festival, the Tattoo, the Interactive Games Festival, the International Film Festival, the Art Festival as well as the Fringe Festival and the International Festival – this city really does have a festival for every occasion and that’s just August!!!
The scope of performances was incredible; as was the ability to use every available room and space not occupied in Edinburgh as a performance venue or art space – there were even markets held in a cemetery! We soon discovered that finding the street address was challenging with streets at different levels, and then finding the right room in what was usually an old, rambling building was more challenge again. Good for getting the street layout in my head though.
We ended up seeing many, many comedians, and felt a bit guilty that many of them were Australians who we probably could have seen on the other side of the world but never did….
Pick of the festival was not a comedian but a shadow puppet show called ‘Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones’ by a Canadian artist Mr Bunk. It was one of the most beautiful theatre experiences of my life watching shadow puppets be created and then worked into stories live on stage. The imagery was quirky, cosy and about taking pleasure in the little things, in daily life - a reminder that there is always time for play, to experiment and to pause and notice beautiful things.
I also attended some sessions of the Festival of Politics at the Parliament. Good on three points: 1) It was a crash course in the Scottish planning system which I definitely don’t understand yet, 2) an opportunity to look around the parliament building which I quite like (that will probably be another blog when its time for a design rant at some stage…) and 3) an excellent international press photographic exhibition in the foyer.
I will be including lots of pictures in this blog too. First ones are of my favorite Edinburgh views.
Arthur's Seat - this ones taken from Carlton Hill
Mushroom Trust garden off the Royal Mile - its a reference to the old roomed gardens of Cannongate residents when each house had a back garden. Old maps show the gardens quite well. Visit http://maps.nls.uk/joins/gord1647.html
View to the Firth from York St, this view was one of my forst gasp moments when wondering around the city. There aren't many trees on the streets, so when a street opens up with a beautful stretch of green, framed with regular Georgian frontages and, on a clear day when the Firth is visable its quite beautiful. The day I took this picture was a bit grey.
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