Coffee tardis and Porridge bar

I'm not sure how to explain this to y'all. But for a country where its bloody freezing most of the time' there are an awful lot of outside food vendors in the UK. These two happen to be from my recent farmers market collection.

Picture number one is a red tardis from the science fiction series on BBC, Dr. Who. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space and its shape is based on some sort of police box. I have no idea what the tie-in with coffee is but it seems to be workingbecasue I saw more than one of these. My Dad (AKA Male Parental Unit) has been a huge Dr. Who fan for years. So this food distribution access point is published for him.

The second picture is of Stoats' Porridge Bar. Another oddity, people in the UK (or in this case specifically Scotland) will stand in line to buy porridge with various toppings. I haven't discovered the difference between porridge (UK) and oatmeal (US); I think it may be the same thing. Its just that in the US, we eat oatmeal ONLY at home and only when its super cold out; here it seems to be considered a tasty treat to be enjoyed by the whole family.

Saturday in Edinburgh

In addition to the Orange walk, I quite a day in Edinburgh. I started by just wandering around and found the Edinburgh Saturday Farmers' Market - I must have farmers' market radar. Then I went up to the castle to check it out. Just adjacent to the castle is a Patrick Geddes (planner's take note) designed flats called 14 Ramsay Gardens. They have great views and must be right on top of the Tattoo. Its a weird location for such a fairy tale looking place. especially when you compare it to the castle. In the pictures I'm standing on that tarmac parking lot and just swinging around facing west to the castle and east to Ramsay Gardens.

Post Castle gawk, I visited the Whisky Heritage Centre - who could pass that up? It was that or the Wool Heritage Centre and Whiskey won out. You kind of have to see that for yourself. So I'll leave it at that.

Topography of Edinburgh

To give you an idea of the prominence of the castle, here's a (admittedly bad)picture of a sculpture of the city. That huge lump in the fore ground is the promontory on which the castle sits. To the immediate north is the New Town, with Princes Street and Princes Street Gardens between the castle and the gird of New Town.

Princes Garden and Scot Monument

As I may have mentioned the weather was amazing on Saturday in Edinburgh. Apparently it is rarely sunny and as you can see it was a clear and sunny day. All the benches in Princes Park were filled with folks soaking up the sun. I had to show this picture because this is a bustling downtown shopping area that was packed with residents and tourists. The park was a welcome respite from hustle and bustle.

Plus, I had to show the monument. Scot (born 1771) was sort of a professional Scotsman, he reinvigorated Scottish nationalism/historicism. After his death, a design competition was held, and won by George Kemp. John Steell carved the statue of Scott but its the Neo-Gothic monument above the statue that really sets it apart. The monument, inaugurated in 1846, stands 200 feet high. There are 287 steps to the top -- I did not climb it.

Just goes to show you that planning and design are really really cool.

Oh, goody, it is a parade...

I had an interesting day in Edinburgh on Saturday. The highlight of which was getting caught up in an "Orange Walk" which was not quite as friendly as I had thought it would be.

Coming from Florida I assumed there would be citrus involved . Anyway, after touring the new Scottish Parliament Building (short review: hugely over budget but absolutely fabulous building) all traffic on the Royal Mile was diverted so I had to walk back up the hill. That's when I started to see the worrying signs: huge police vans with riot shields, horses wearing riot gear, many many many police and a crowd of really really white people - a bit like stumbling across a KKK march in the South, I expect. But then there were the women and children divisions...

Weirdly, they were wearing band uniforms like high school bands in the Macy's Christmas Parade, playing drums and piccolos, and carrying signs saying "Defenders of the faith", "No Papacy" etc. Except for the signs, I expected the bands to suddenly stop and do a breakdown; you know like FAMU does when they are in a parade, but no they only just kept on marching - endlessly.

Basically, it was very surreal.

I never found out what the LOL on there insignia meant but a history of Orange Order can be found here.

Did I mention the women's accordian division?

Most of the drummers had tatoos

Train to Scotland

I've headed up to Scotland; Edinburgh to be specific. I have a peer review to participate in on Thursday and a talk to give on Friday then I am staying through Sunday just to soak up the city. It is a planner's dream.

There's the old town: the castle and south--all crazy shapes on hilly forms about a mile long and 400 yards wide according to my guidebook and then there is the new town: a rational planned 18th Century construction north of the castle.

Our office in Edinburgh is at the base of the castle in an old church building, oddly over looking the cemetery where Burke and Hare did their body snatching. Can't wait to see more of the city; but as far as offices go this one is quite scenic!

I decided to take the train which was the right thing to do. It takes about 4 hours but its comfortable, has a table and wireless internet. You can get a lot done in the quiet car of a train! Plus then after three hours the scenery starts to become amazing. It was green green green. and then as you get closer to Edinburgh you start seeing glimpses of water, I assume the Firth. There are some great views of really large estates (too big to be houses - I guess you could call them country houses in the British sense) not castles but BIG brick piles...

Pilates number 3

In my continuing effort to get outta the house, I signed up for 10 Pilates lessons. The first was two weeks ago and I could barely sit up for at least three days after that session. Last night, I had my third lesson; this time I didn't feel like I worked hard enough. Hmmm, does that make me a masochist or am I just getting a little bit better every time?

The funny thing about Pilates is that the movements are so small, my theory is you really have to pay attention or you can just fake the whole thing. Of course my "core" can be as strong as I like it but I need to start swimming again to really get the physical fitness level up. Its just that swimming isn't really social; and right now I need social.

On an unrelated note, I have become obsessed with Nina Simone - isn't (wasn't) she the most interesting, amazing vocalist? A couple of years ago I went to see Shirley Horn at the Masonic Hall in SF; amazing free tickets given to me by a friend. It was all about Shirley Horn after that. Nina and Shirley have completely unrelated style but yet somehow remind me of each other.

Bookclub - back in session

Much to my relief, Jenifer and Shannon have hooked me up with their old London book club. So on a blustery St. Pat's Saturday, I headed over to Muswell Hill to go to my second session of my latest book club. I was invited and attended in January - I'm just so stoked they invited me back! We read On Beauty by Zadie Smith, I really enjoyed it but thought that the whole north-east US collegiate setting was difficult to translate to non-US-ers. Not that they didn't understand it and I'm sure that the North London setting also had things in it that I didn't get. But most of all, I'm just happy to have folks to see on on evening who aren't work related.

We are going to be picture free for a while, same old technical difficulties. I'm hoping to get the photo-thing sorted before next weeks trip to Edinburgh. talk later.

My new favoraite place

This is a seat in the Reading Room of the British Library. Actually its at the British Museum, which used to surround the British Museum. It is a circular temple of knowledge inscribed within the square of the Museum. Of course the Library holdings completely outgrew the circular space so the Library itself moved up the road to the Kings Cross-St. Pancras neighborhood.

But the Reading Room remains at the center of the British Museum. It now has a beautiful glass dome connecting what I presume used to be a courtyard to the Museum itself. The dome is beautiful--lacy, airy and inviting. Plus the whole thing is FREE! Crikey, it is FREE to walk into that museum and stroll around through the amazing collection. OK, it is plundered from all around the world but, whatever, its astounding to just see all that stuff in one place. And then in the middle there is this library. I love libraries. Particularly old ones, with books. I could and do spend hours just wandering around looking at the books, thinking, "Maybe I really should read this volume on Textiles of Abyssinia?"

The point is this is my new favorite place in London; Seat E5, just near the little bit of a history section that the British Library has thoughtfully left there.

Who knew rhubarb was red?

More pictures from the market day. Proving once again that I don't eat enough vegetables, I took this picture because I didn't know rhubarb was red - or, frankly, that it looked so much like celery.

My only experience of rhubarb is reading about its poisonous leaves and as an ingredient in pies. Its the pie thing that makes it so confusing. A) Isn't it a vegetable? so B) why is it in fruit pies? and C) since its usually with a red fruit I always though it was being dyed in the pie. Not that it was actually red itself.

the things you learn by moving to another country. My mother reads this blog and she's going to be upset that I told the world I didn't know rhubarbs are red. It is really fine, Mum, I know a lot of other really important stuff!

Street signs

Gotta love the signs that spring up; this graffiti was sprayed on the wall of a picturesque house (in a run down and surely expensive) in an alley near Borough Market. I can imagine that the folks who lived there got sick of tourists taking pictures of the front so they gave us something to take a picture of.

P.S. I figured out how to get photos off my camera so now I don't have to worry about the silly camera and batteries issue, so look forward to more posts.

Cheese!

This weekend I went back to the neighborhood were I stayed when I was first in London and explored a bit deeper. This shot is from the interior of the Neal's Yard cheese shop at Burough Market. You walk in and the ceiling goes up 15 feet and its cheese stacked all the way up.

Its like walking into a Wallace and Grommit store; you can almost see Wallace twiddling his fingers saying "Wenselydale." They had two kinds of cheese for tasting. One of which I bopught a hunk of to go with the apples I bought at the market proper.

One small problem, my bag smelled like smelly cheese all day as I wandered around.

Coffee to go with the Cheese?

Next to the Neals Yard cheese shop is the Monmouth Coffee shop. Doesn't it look cosy? The line snaked out the door into the rainy street. It was still pretty early when I got there, and they told me that it really got a lot busier when its sunny and a bit later in the day.

I really think that this kind of food/veggie/coffee retail is not a flash in the pan. The Ferry Building in San Francisco, I just wrote off to the crazy food-culture of the Bay area. I am very interested to see how this kind of retail is doing in cities that are NOT London or San Francisco.

Another vending machine

This machine sells paperback books. I think its great, running through a train station - "oh damn, I need something to read. Look here's a machine selling books." Really cool.

Have I mentioned how much they read here in UK? Its very interesting to see everybody with their heads bent reading on trains; even if they are reading horrible crap newspapers.

My Tennessee Street neighbors hit the road...

day four sunset
Originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

and sent me pictures of their tour of northern California. The best part of this is that they now own my lovely red Cabrio. And they take pictures of it in wonderful locations. I don't miss the car but I enjoy seeing her out and about, doesn't she look lovely for eight years old?

cemetery near the office

Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Originally uploaded by Doctor Beef.