Arthur's Seat (For Real This Time)

The highest point in the middle there? That is Arthur's Seat.

After the failed attempt to climb Arthur's Seat with Sarah, Vicki and I set out on one of the nicest days we had all summer, at midday, to have lunch on the top of Arthur's Seat. There may have been some sunburns as a consequence. 

Above: not-Arthur's Seat

From Wikipedia:

Arthur's Seat is the main peak of the group of hills in Scotland which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design". It is situated in the center of the city of Edinburgh, about a mile to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill itself rises above the city to a height of 250.5 m (822 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch.(x)

Arthur's Seat is also often mentioned as one of the possible locations for Camelot.

I don't officially know which route up the hill Vicki and I took, all I know is that there were a lot of stairs, and I (predictably) forgot my inhailer. But it was fine, as it turns out Vicki is a disgrace to the Canadian military and thus, in worse shape than me, so even though I had an asthma attack halfway up the hill, Vicki still needed to stop more than I did. 

(when she flopped down at the top of the hill, I told her my parents would have abandoned her in the mountains as a child)

The stairs themselves were very cold and cool looking, though you definitely had to keep an eye on where your feet were going. 

Below the cut is more photos of the hike up (which included, as promised, some amazing views of the city) and some random fun facts about Arthur's Seat.

Vicki Arrives & A Day in the Park

I had to leave the zoo early after the reception to head to the airport to pick up my friend Vicki, who was arriving that evening from Canada. Her flight was delayed, so I ended up spending some time entertaining myself with a magazine and some tea, but eventually she got there!

Vicki was in Scotland for around a month, and thus did a lot of things on her own, though she stayed with me for most of her visit (aside from a weekend in London and a week in Ireland). The weather was really gorgeous a lot of the time while she was here though, so one of her first days in town (after a little shopping excursion to primark) we went out to the meadows with my friends.

We grabbed some bubble tea first and headed out to soak up some of the sunshine. 

... there may also have been some wine involved. While its not legal to drink in public areas such as the meadows in Scotland in general, it is allowed in Edinburgh (someone told me it was because of the Fringe - the city gets so crazy during the Fringe they couldn't enforce it, so they just stopped enforcing it the rest of the year as well). I don't know how true that is or not, but all summer there is a lot of barbeques and drinking going on in the meadows. 

After we left the meadows, we went to Clerk's bar for some dinner and drinks. Just a really lovely day in Edinburgh :) 

Around Edinburgh

I don't have too much more to say about my placement at Luath, but I do have some more pictures from Edinburgh spanning my time there, so I thought I'd share them. 

The view from the office was amazing, especially looking back towards the ocean. 

The trees were all pink in the Meadows for about a week, which was lovely. I wish they'd last longer, but unfortunately by the time I left Edinburgh they'd already begun to disappear.

Below is the view from the kitchen at Luath, looking up towards the castle.

I definitely took the bus more those two weeks than I had ever before, which was quite nice. The Edinburgh public transit is really quite a solid system.

It was really gorgeous outside the entire time I was there, except for a day or two of rain. But the walk up from where I got off the bus to the office was really nice (except for all the tourists of course).

On the Thursday night before my last day at Luath, I went to a book launch at Blackwell's South Bridge.

Since it took me me 20 min on the bus to get from work, and I got off at 5 and the launch was at 7, there wasn't much point in me going home in between, so I hung out in Cafe Nero and read my book in between.

The launch was lovely, they had wine and juice and it was quite lovely.

Thursday, 8 May 2014, Blackwell’s South Bridge, Edinburgh

Dilys Rose’s second novel is an exploration of memory, family, and mental illness, a fragmented novel that paints a moving journey of self-discovery for the reader.

With her father’s breakdown, Gala finds herself pulled back into the toxic family dynamics she thought she had eluded. Through ripples of the past, we begin to piece together the reality of a family who has lived a lie for as long as she can remember. But what kind of truth can memory really offer?

Over the course of the launch, Rose read from various sections of her book, specifically choosing to focus on the turbulent relationship between Gala and her father – though there are of course other characters, Rose assures us that these are the central ones. However, Rose first read the book’s epigraph to the audience, a poem that she had written herself. After this somewhat unusual introduction (at least, as far as epigraphs go) she launched into the first part of her novel, a segment focusing on Gala and her father when Gala was still very young. The section tells the story of Gala and her father going to the foundry to get a bust of her head, sculpted by her father, baked before being cast in bronze. Gala, who does not think herself beautiful, no matter how many times the kind Italian man who works at the factory calls her ‘bella’, secretly hopes that the bust explodes. While Rose left off this first section at this point, she did offer a cheeky spoiler to the audience – the bust does, indeed, burst. While the second section selected by Rose did introduce the large green nude man Gala’s father has sculpted and placed in their home (tastefully draped with a towel by her mother for guests), it was in the third excerpt chosen by Rose that the audience truly began to understand the extent of the family’s dysfunction, as Gala’s father insists that it is inconsequential that he decided his painting of Gala was not beautiful enough to be his daughter, and instead painted a model, informing her that he was going to tell everyone that the model was his daughter, and it was simply artistic license anyways.

Rose captured her audience in her reading, drawing everyone there into the world of Pelmanism, a world of dysfunctional family interactions and mental illness.

“Memory plays a pretty big role in this novel, accurate and inaccurate memories.” –Rose
Dilys Rose was born and brought up in Glasgow. Previous publications include three collections of short stories, Our Lady of the Pickpockets, Red Tides and War Dolls, three of poetry - Beauty is a Dangerous Thing, Madame Doubtfire's Dilemma, and Lure, and a novel, Pest Maiden.

She has also written for stage and collaborated with musicians and visual artists. Awards include the first Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Prize, The R.L.S. Memorial Award, The Society of Authors’ Travel Award, The Canongate Prize and two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards. Red Tides was short-listed for both the McVitie’s Scottish Writer of the Year and the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. Pest Maiden was nominated for the Impac Prize.

She teaches creative writing at Edinburgh University. For further information please visit www.dilysrose.com

Pelmanism is now available from luath.co.uk.

The rain just made Edinburgh even greener than it already was - spring definitely came much earlier in Scotland than it did in Alberta!

The day after it was really rainy, it was really sunny, and during lunch Emily and I walked up to the ramp ahead of the castle, and the city looked just amazing.

Sun & A Surprise Park

The week between London and Majorca was largely spent doing school work, interspersed with going to see Captain America The Winter Soldier for a second time with Keira (seriously, its so good), hanging out with Maya and Jordan having scrambled eggs and sparkling wine (a winning combination), getting bubble tea with some other pub people, reading in the sunshine outside Starbucks, and going for a wonderful walk.

(As I said to Shanni, my baristas know my name. They may not know how to spell my name, but they know my name).

I knew there was a rather large park about 10-15 min walk from my house, but the last time I was up there it was freezing and I didn't get far (the walk there was brisk enough, much less going up the hill). However, I really wanted to participate in the Art Assignment's fifth assignment, the quietest space, which challenged viewers to take a walk from their place of residence and find the quietest place. I figured that park would be my best bet, and headed up there. It was absolutely gorgeous out.

It was kind of amazing, because there were so many song birds around, and bees, and all these flowers blossoming… but there were also a ton of people out enjoying the sunshine as well, but there wasn’t any real people noise. Like me, everyone who was out seemed to be content to just wander along silently, soaking up the sunlight and the sounds of nature.

I took a bunch of videos on my phone, which I may edit into something at some point, and which you can really hear all the birds on. It was really funny, because I just kind of spontaneously decided to do this, I was up there in my jeans and nice shirt, converse, big purse... and I passed so many people wearing like, proper hiking clothes with water bottles and stuff. Which was mostly funny because I was like dude, if you think this is an actual hike and not just a nice walk up a hill, you really shouldn't ever go to Canada.

I also discovered a massive community garden that I didn't know existed, that looked rather like some strange shanty town. When I was up here in the winter I thought it was maybe some sort of science station, as there was no one there, but on this day there were loads of people in there working on their gardens.

Arthur's seat looks really intimidating in the distance... I still haven't gotten around to walking up there, but now that its nicer out, I will hopefully do that soon.

In other news, I did my nails for the beach yesterday, and had some trauma over the latest episode of game of thrones (don't scroll past the nail picture if you want to avoid spoilers). 

Connie was not helpful.