It's Bobby Burns Birthday

My friend, Jan North, reminded me today that today is Robert Burns birthday. Jan and I walked 150 high altitude miles in Bhutan a year ago and we will be walking 95 miles of the West Highland Way in Scotland this summer. Indeed it will be a stroll compared to Bhutan. In Bobbie's honor she sent me this poem and bio from Garrison Keillor's Writers Almanac.

A Red, Red Rose

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Roberts Burns was born in Alloway, Scotland, in 1759. He was the son of a poor farmer, and he spent the first half of his life engaged in the back-breaking work of farming. He always carried a book with him, and he read while he drove his wagon slowly along the road. He got into trouble with a girl named Jean Armour when he got her pregnant. He had left another woman after she became pregnant, but he loved Armour and didn't want her to suffer the indignities of being an unwed mother. He lost the farm, married Jean Armour, and wound up in Edinburgh. He wrote conversational poems about Scottish life. His book Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was very successful when it came out in 1786.

Robert Burns is the National Poet of Scotland. And today is a Scottish national holiday in his honor and celebrated all over the world by admirers of Robert Burns and by loyal Scots. There are formal suppers organized by Robert Burns societies, at which the host gives a welcoming speech and then everyone together says the Selkirk Grace, which Burns made famous:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Then soup is served - maybe potato soup, cock-a-leekie soup, or a Scotch broth - and then, with great ado, the haggis is brought out. All the guests recite:

Fair full your honest, jolly face,
Great chieftain of the sausage race!
Above them all you take your place,
Stomach, tripe, or intestines:
Well are you worthy of a grace
As long as my arm.

Then the haggis is cut open and served, along with rutabagas or mashed potatoes. After the meal, there are a number of toasts: one to the monarch or leader of the country, one to Robert Burns, and then a "toast to the lassies," to which a woman gives a reply. There may be other toasts, and of course, there is whiskey involved. The evening ends with everyone singing "Auld Lang Syne."

Garrison left Clarinda out of the story, but we know about our Clarinda.

How many hearts can one man break?

Edinburgh: Changed Priorities Ahead

So I have gathered unto myself
All the loose ends of Scotland,
And by naming them and accepting them,
Loving them and identifying myself with them,
Attempt to express the whole.
Hugh MacDiarmid, "Scotland" Selected Poems (1992)

Patty and I walked our feet down to stubs the last two days in Edinburgh. Good thing we were conditioned from our walk across England.

We toured the inside of Edinburgh Castle, built on that rock that has been inhabited by some people or another for the last 8000 years. The Abbey ruins and palace at Holyrood. The Museum of Scotland where we checked out the history of the Jacobite rebellion and learned Scotland had once been close to the South Pole. The National Gallery of Art. We went back to Clarinda's, our favorite tea spot.

We took a gazillion pictures of the castle inside,


and out.


Another gazillion of the abbey ruins at Holyrood, inside...


and out.


In the evening we took in another view from our hotel window, this time from a little inn, Melvin House, off the beaten path.


On the last morning before catching our flight back home, I took a walk by myself to say goodbye to the bit of the city that had given us much to think about. It was one of those overcast, off and on drizzly Edinburgh days we had known and grown to love. I walked again through Princes Garden and took one last photo of the castle.


Along Princes Street to take in the skyline of the Old Town.


Walking back in the direction of Melvin House, I was a wee bit lost. Well, I was verra lost until I came across a street sign we had puzzled over the day before.


Looking around, there is no clear meaning of the sign, no construction, no clear traffic changes. Hm-m-m. Might it have some philosophical implications?

Back home, I mulled over the changed priorities thing. I needed to make some change, and finally Patty gave me an idea. Now, every night at 7:00 I put down whatever I'm doing and go to my cozy chair and read. Not just that 10-15 minutes before one falls asleep or those few hours on a flight. I'm on the fifth volume of the Outlander series, and working my way down that stack of books waiting to be finished.

This is the last of our Hadrian's Wall Walk and Edinburgh stories. I finish with the same sadness with which I left Edinburgh. To those who have read these stories, I would say,

Travel, even if just to a nearby burgh.
Look for adventure, even going to the Farmer's Market.
Meet new peoples.
Get out of the car or tour bus and onto your feet.
Learn the history of what you see.
Change a priority.

Clarinda

Late in the afternoon of trekking up and down Edinburgh's Royal Mile, Joan, Patty and I stopped into Clarinda's, a tearoom close by the Canongate Kirk, for "cream tea". Clarinda's is a cozy, wee place with lace tablecloths, antiquey pictures on the wall, and the sort of ladies serving our tea that one could imagine in the back kitchen baking up scones and brewing tea. I supposed Clarinda owned the place, maybe even she was serving us.


I like Joan's picture better. She has a way of getting the whole story in one picture.


Cream tea is not the milk in your tea British drink, but rather tea with scones spread with clotted cream - not butter mind you, and strawberry - not raspberry - jam. By the time we sat down they were out of scones and I settled for a rock bun which was verra tasty.

Back home reading some Edinburgh history, I came across the real Clarinda. She was Agnes MacLehose, a genteel young married woman from Glasgow and daughter of a physician, whose violent husband went off to Jamaica and abandoned her, or perhaps she decided she didn't want to hang with the guy anymore. She went to live in Edinburgh where she met young Robert Burns, an up and coming poet by this time, and they fell in love. Well, let's say they had an amorous affair. He was a handsome guy who strolled beneath her window in his buckskins and riding whip, hoping she would look out and see him. Shortly, though, he was laid up in Edinburgh for six weeks after his coach overturned. (This story would make a good movie.) While recuperating from his leg injury he and Clarinda began to write passionate letters to each other. To disguise their letters, he took the name of Sylvander and she became Clarinda. Cad that he was, Robert returned to his farm and married his girlfriend who, coincidentally, had borne his twins two years earlier; her maid had also had a child by Robert!

Let me not digress from the Robert and Clarinda tale however...over the next four years, both married (he likely still womanizing), they continued letter writing, and she was the Clarinda in his poetry.

"Clarinda, mistres of my soul,
The measur'd time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.

To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie;
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy?

We part-but by these precious drops,
That fill thy lovely eyes,
No other light shall guide my steps,
Till thy bright beams arise!

She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?"

Sigh! No wonder Bob Dylan names Burns as his biggest inspiration.

Edinburgh: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Toward the end of our first day trekking the Royal Mile, we came across the Canongate Kirk (church) and cemetery with a stunning view, old headstones, and this door on the church's east side. Of course, I had to take a picture of the red door. Check this site for a picture of the front of the wee kirk and the beautiful interior which, unfortunately, we didn't get to see.

If cemeteries could talk, this one would have a lot to say. When I came home, I checked out who is buried there. A cemetery around since 1688 has plenty time to collect some notable bodies. The list reads like a Who's Who of Edinburgh - painters, musicians, writers, scholars, mayors, and lords. Naturally some spicy scandals accompany the notables. Here are just a few of the interred...

George Drummond, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, laid the foundation of the North Bridge, fought at the battle of Prestonpans. The guy was born in 1687 and would have been 58 at the time of this battle. He was on the side of Johnny Cope, fighting those pesky Highlanders. :)

Adam Smith, that famous economist and free market Reaganite who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Was he perhaps a plagiarist? His statue was unveiled in front of St. Giles Kirk just days before we came to Edinburgh.


George Chalmers, originally a plumber, founded Chalmers Hospital. Maybe there's hope for our Joe the Plumber.

John Frederick Lampe, one of my favorite guys here, was Handel's bassoon player in opera houses in the early 1700's.

Young Robert Fergusson, poet. Often sickly, he died at the age of 24 years in a public insane asylum. Likely he had manic depressive disorder complicated by spending too much time in those Scottish pubs. He fell down stairs in a drunken state and died a few weeks later. Robert Burns visited his grave site a year later and on reaching the grave uncovered his head, knelt down and embraced the earth. He put up a monument to the young Fergusson, inscribed as follows:

"No sculptur'd Marble here, nor pompous lay,
No storied Urn nor animated Bust;
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er the Poet's dust."


Joan caught a picture of the poet's statue outside the kirk, a wee short lad he must have been.


David Rizzo, Mary, Queen of Scots' personal secretary. He was murdered by Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, and a bunch of noble thugs in front of pregnant Mary, stabbed 56 times. (We saw the spot in Holyrood where this happened.) Within a few hours he was buried in the back yard of the Holyrood Palace just down the street from the kirk. His body was moved at least a couple times before finally ending up in the Canongate Kirk.

And, lastly (for this story, that is), dear Clarinda, sweetheart of Robert Burns is buried here. But hers is a story for another day...

Wouldn't you like to be here in the Canongate cemetery on All Hallow's Eve? Maybe chat a bit, swap some stories?

Room with a View

"But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream
Fitful and dark
Unseizable in Leith
And wildered by the Forth.
But irresistibly at last
Cleaving to sombre heights
of passionate imagining
Til stonily,
From soaring battlements
Earth eyes Eternity."
(Hugh MacDiarmid, The Complete Poems, 1978)

Back to Edinburgh now that Patty has finished her account of our foot travels across England...actually this story came from our first day in Edinburgh before we started on our trek.

Joan, Patty, and I flew all night from Charleston to New York to Edinburgh, arriving early morning, and naturally our room was not ready. We elected to stay at a hotel on the Royal Mile to be able to walk out the door into the footsteps of all those illustrious Scots -- Robert Burns, Adam Smith, Bonnie Prince Charlie -- well, his illustriousness is questionable -- Mary, Queen of Scots and, aye, Jamie Fraser.

"We'd like a room with a view", I told the desk clerk.

Reassured we could have a room later in the afternoon, we left our bags in Hisako and Tetsu's room and set out on foot down to Holyrood, up to the Castle, looking for Grassmarket, back up to look for Greyfriar's Kirk, stopping for afternoon tea at Clarinda's (more on Clarinda later), and finally dragging ourselves back to the hotel about 4:00.

Our room was ready. Determined, I asked the clerk again, "Does it have a view?"

And what a view... looking south to the heights of Arthur's Seat,

To the north, looking over the Mary Poppins roofs to Calton Hill with Nelson's Monument and the unfinished National Monument -- the money ran out in 1829 -- meant to honor Scottish soldiers killed in the Napoleonic Wars.

And our view of Patty's backside, hanging out the window. She couldn't get enough of that Edinburgh view.

Rear view photo by Joan

A Tail of Two Cities

Late in the afternoon on our first day in Edinburgh we trudged up Candlemaker Row in the drizzle looking for the statue of a famous little dog and the churchyard where he and his master are buried. His master - some say he was a local farmer, some a policeman - died in 1858, two years after he acquired Bobby, a Skye terrier. Bobby stayed on his master’s grave until he died 14 years later, leaving only to get lunch about one o’clock at a nearby pub, then called Traills Coffee House, now Greyfriar’s Bobby Inn.


Famous even in his time, he was buried in the Greyfriar’s churchyard and a Baroness erected a fountain and statue in front of the tavern a year after his death. His is the most photographed statue in Scotland.

Greyfriars Kirk, Bobby's grave just inside the entrance

What is it about Bobby’s story that makes visitors like Joan and Patty and myself endure the elements and jet lag to search out this little guy’s statue? Is this kind of faithfulness and loyalty missing from our lives today?

In 1886, soon after Bobby, San Diego had its own dog story. Bum, a St. Bernard - spaniel mix (that must have been some union!) stowed onto a steamer from San Francisco and got off in San Diego to become a fixture in the Gaslamp area of town for the next 12 years. He hung around downtown restaurants and bars where, unfortunately, patrons fed him alcohol and he had to go through detox. He hitched rides on streetcars and lost a front leg on a train track. Famous also in his time, he rode the fire engines, participated in town parades, and his picture was put on dog licenses.


Bum was a vagabond loyal to a town. Quite a contrast, but both dogs are immortalized with their statues in a little park at 4th and Island in the Gaslamp.


San Diego’s sister city, Edinburgh, brought over a statue of Bobby in 1998



and last month a delegation from San Diego traveled to Edinburgh to place a statue of Bum in Prince Street Gardens, just down the hill from Bobby.

Why all the fuss about these two? What is it about these two guys that makes them heroes?

Skinks and Sinks

When we got to Edinburgh on Monday, our room at the Radisson wasn’t ready, so we went to Hisako and Tetsu’s room where we left our bags and took off for lunch at Hadrian’s Brasserie on South Bridge. This was the salad.

Eww - glad I didn't have that!

Hisako and Tetsu had cullen skink, a chowder kind of soup; they loved it but the name put me off – in South Carolina, a skink is a tailless fat black salamander-ish creature.

From the Scottish Recipes site: "Cullen is a wee town here in the North east of Scotland and Cullen Skink is traditionally made with Finnan haddock, potatoes and onions. Finnan haddock is often called Finnan haddie. The word skink means soup or stew. The Cullen Skink recipe may also be called Smoked Haddock Chowder in some restaurants."

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the restaurant is located in the Balmoral Hotel. Probably explains why there were pretty little pink flowers painted on the sink pedestals in the ladies’ room.

(Salad photo by Kathie - who else takes pics of her food? Sink photo by Joan.)