Our driving trip to Edinburgh on Thursday evening was successful in that we did manage to get home about an hour earlier than we would have had we taken the train. That is not to say that driving in Edinburgh is not nerve-wracking. Gordon's directions to the restaurant/concert venue were good but there were all sorts of obstacles to be overcome. First there are bus- and taxi-only lanes that, if you don't know about them and you're already groping to find your way, can get you in trouble. Then there are "no turn" signs where people keep turning. Don felt he shouldn't turn at one of the crucial ones where we were supposed to turn, so he didn't. That put us on Princes Street, the main shopping thoroughfare in Edinburgh that runs in front of Princes Street Gardens with the Castle up on the hill. It was beautiful at night with the lights on it but the lights we kept seeing said no right turn, which meant we travelled quite a distance before we could start retracing our steps to the "no turn" corner where we absolutely had to turn. But we managed. Apparently Gordon also didn't know that Victoria St., which he said would take us right to the Grassmarket, is one way coming out, so we had to grope our way through unfamiliar streets to find our way. Finally we stopped to ask someone and, as luck would have it, we were very close.
We had a lovely meal at a place called The Lot with Brian and Patricia Rose. Afterward we went upstairs to the concert venue to hear Gypsy Jazz in the Django Reinhardt style. The group was really terrific and the audience left well pleased. Many in the audience were quite young and looked to be guitar students of one or more of the players. We had found free parking on the street and so walked together to our cars to say goodbye. Brian and Patricia are always enjoyable company but we don't see them as often as we did when Patricia's son had a flat in Comrie, so we had a lot of catching up to do.
The trip home was fine once we got out of Edinburgh. It wasn't as easy to retrace our steps as it looked on the map Gordon drew for us. Edinburgh didn't help us any by being very inconsistent in signage. We would get to a crucial intersection and see a sign to the Forth Bridge only to come to the next crucial intersection and find no sign--and no clear indication as to which road we should be on when several went off at an angle. It reminded us of when we were first learning to navigate the streets of Washington, DC. We retraced our steps several times, got honked at by taxis and buses because I strayed into their lanes, and had to stop yet again to ask someone for directions. This time they got us to where there was a sign to the Forth Bridge, only it was across the street and pointing in the direction from which we had come! So we had to find a way to turn around which isn't as easy as it sounds. Here it was after 11 on a week night and Edinburgh traffic was still quite heavy. Once we got back on the right road, though, we had a straight shot across the Forth Road Bridge and onto the A90 which took us home via Perth. We pulled into our drive at 12:15 ever so glad to be home!
Saturday night we had dinner with Syd and Lorna Peedle at the cottage next to Comrie Cottage, which is where we used to do self-catering when we were in Comrie on holiday starting in 1996. We had a good catch-up visit with them and an excellent meal. We started out in Comrie Cottage with drinks and nibbles so here we were, sitting in our former rented sitting room. There has always been an alcove in the sitting room next to where the TV sits which has glass shelving in it and curios placed about on them. I asked Syd if it had once been a window. He said funnily enough when they first bought the cottage, it had been a cupboard with doors across it. He had opened the doors to see shelving but as it was dark inside, he had no idea that the cupboard had been built in a former window. Much to his chagrin he found out that it had been a window only after he paid a fortune to have a window put in on the other side of the fireplace, next to where the dining table now sits. As it turns out, that is a better place for a window but it certainly would have been easier--and cheaper--to put a new window in where there once had been one. This got us on the subject of why so many traditional cottages, and there are several right here in Comrie, have bricked-in windows.
In 1690, William III decided to levy a tax on windows. Obviously, the very rich had many windows in their mansions so their protests were made in no uncertain terms, although it is said that some rich folk took great delight in proving just how rich they were by adding as many windows as they could manage into their mansions. Many more ordinary folk simply boarded up one or more of their windows. The Irish guide in Bunratty Castle had mentioned to us that the Window Tax was the origin of the phrase "daylight robbery" because it, literally, robbed the poor of daylight when they couldn't afford to pay and so boarded up their windows. Sources I consulted, however, say the term "daylight robbery" didn't appear until the 1940s. Whether the phrase is applicable or not, it does seem that the boarding-up of windows related to the Window Tax.
The photos above are from yesterday's trip to Glasgow for my belated birthday gift: 3 Celtic Connections concerts. The first photo shows Buchanan Street taken from the front steps of Glasgow's Concert Hall, where the events were held. The green statue in the foreground is of Glasgow's native son, the late Donald Dewar who was Scotland's first First Minister under devolution in the late 90s. You can see how many folks are milling about. We mentioned once before in a blog that Sunday appears to be a big shopping day for Glasgow. The streets and shops were teeming as usual.
The second photo is of an art deco hotel building, The Beresford. I was taking the photo because I like the architecture and the white and red colour scheme, but just as I was snapping the shot, a man walking past on the sidewalk stopped and came back to ask me if I was from Glasgow. I said "No, although we do stay in Scotland" (which is how you say "we do live in Scotland" over here). He said "Well, do you know the history of that building?" I said "No, but I hope you will tell me." He didn't really tell me the actual history of the building but said that when JFK's father Joseph had been the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, he had made a visit to Glasgow and had brought 14-year-old JFK with him. A photo of JFK and his father in front of the hotel appeared in the newspapers the next day. The real history of the place is that it was built in 1938 by the owner and builder, whose middle name was Beresford, who also was the architect. At the time, it was Glasgow's first sky scraper. It is now converted to high priced flats.
Our three concerts yesterday were all excellent. The first one, at 1 pm, was the hot new band, the MacCrimmons, led by a young man named MacCrimmon from Skye. A MacCrimmon has, for centuries, been the piper to the Chief of the MacLeod family whose family castle is Dunvegan in the northern part of the Isle of Skye. The group features 2 pipers, fiddle, drums, whistles, and guitar. They are all young folks who met in music school in Glasgow; some but not all are from Skye. They were a lively and talented band and the songs, written by the young MacCrimmon, were quite clever and tuneful.
After that concert, we walked down Sauchiehall Street looking for a Thai restaurant I thought I had seen (it must have been in the opposite direction). We settled for an Italian restaurant where we had eaten in the past and Don had liked the pizza. I was good and ate mostly vegetables from an anti pasto platter and a bowl of delicious minestrone soup. (I was worried when I got on the scales having eaten out in Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as having had a meal at the Peedles, but I had lost a pound when I weighed on Saturday morning and 2 more pounds when I weighed this morning.)
We returned to the Glasgow Concert Hall after a nice long stroll back along Sauchiehall Street and had cappucinos and read our books, waiting for time to queue for the 5 o'clock Open Mike Finalists from the festival. The cabaret style concert venue was packed. In fact, we were quite fortunate to find seats. Each set of performers was better than the one before. There was an Irish family group that played instruments and sang, The Rooneys, who were so good we bought their CD. Next came a young Welsh harpist who played beautifully and made great eye contact with the audience. She was followed by a Scots lad of about 15 who gave hiliarious introductions to his fiddle strathspeys, airs, and reels, all played with precision and fire. Next came a 5-piece band called TNT (The New Tradition) which consisted of 3 pipers, rhythm guitar, and drums. They were young and amazingly entertaining. Don and I both thought we had seen them in George Square during the Glasgow Piping Festival in 2005. Next came two guitarists, one from Perth, who called themselves "Wingin' It" and really turned in virtuoso performances. The final act was a band of young men from Orkney with the unlikely name of "The Lazy Boy Chairs." They sort of blew us all away with their wild and crazy style and incredibly fast pace. By the time they finished, the crowd had gone wild. Each performer was awarded with a medal and a gift of whisky or, for the younger performers, a bottle of Irn Bru (an overly sweet, lurid orange soft drink said to cure hangovers!). The two hours we spent in this even simply flew by.
The grand finale of the almost month-long annual Celtic Connections Festival is called The Transatlantic Sessions and features performers from Scotland with performers from other countries, most notably, the U.S. The headliner was Roseann Cash, whom the Scottish audiences are over-the-moon about. For us the big draw were Scots performers Phil Cunningham (accordion) and Aly Bain (Shetland fiddle) and Karen Matheson of the group "Capercaillie." It was an excellent concert and the surprise hit for us was a trio of very talented young women called "Wailin' Jennys" whom many of you may have heard on a Prairie Home Companion. We had never heard of them before and they set us back on our heels. It was another late-night drive home but we had an absolutely wonderful day out in Glasgow. It was a most enjoyable birthday treat.
Last night Don had his second annual Superbowl Party (he taped the game) and the guests, Peter Innes and Gordon Rae, enjoyed both the game and the beer and snacks. They all said it was a most exciting game. Peter and Don helped Gordon get the basics of American football. Looks like they're going to make it a tradition. Peter has offered to host next year's party.
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