Stardate: 27 April 2019 - Well helloooo Dolly!

And what an apposite title for today's post - meet Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned mammal.  Of course, she has been dead 16 years and only lived about half a sheep's normal lifespan but here she is, large as life in her own personal glass cabinet at the Museum of Scotland, which we visited today. 

And what a fabulous museum it is - we should have gone earlier as it would take days to see everything. 

We spent most of our time in the gallery "Kingdom of the Scots" and it was pretty impressive, with a comprehensive history and many artifacts from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance period. 

This is the cradle and chair of James the Sixth of Scotland whose mother, Mary Queen of Scots had been forced to abdicate and was exiled. James (later to become James the First of England) never saw his mother after his birth and was raised by her friend Annabel something. (Possibly but probably not Crabb.)

The museum had a charm that was missing from the British museum in London where we have visited several times previously - perhaps it was the absence of stolen and looted artifacts.  It was large and spacious and somehow less pompous than its London counterpart. 

Geoffy was particularly entranced by this early piano accordion - the working classes in the 19th century were encouraged to better themselves with music and other cultural pursuits so he would have fitted right in.  :-)

After our outing to the V and A museum in London some years ago, I had a new appreciation of gates. The V and A had a dedicated gate gallery that went on forever and was difficult to escape from.  But I thought this worthy specimen would sit well in the V and A.

We're leaving Edinburgh tomorrow morning to begin our highland fling.  Ironic as it may seem, I'll be glad to see the 'real' Scotland as old town Edinburgh is 90 per cent tourists including, of course, ourselves.  It will be nice to get off the beaten track and escape all the loud, chain-smoking visitors with 2-metre selfie sticks. 

Before I go, apologies if you have tried to post a comment on our blog unsuccessfully.  Not sure what the current problem is.  Keep trying! 

Handing over to Mr Pants now who is keen to share details about today's hearty lunch and our arvo activities!

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We also paid another visit to Greyfriars Kirkyard.  Not a major exercise, as it's right next door.

Our digs are right behind this section of the stone wall.  You can't seen our windows as they're on the ground floor, so you'll just have to trust me.  In the last couple of days we've made several sightings of a frisky squirrel in our back yard.  Anne has christened him Squirrel Nutkin (with apologies to Beatrix Potter). [Actually I call him Squirrel Nutpants. - Ed]

He's quite entertaining.  Likes to scuttle across the top of the wall and leap onto the lower branches of the tree.  

A view of the kirkyard and beyond.  We do like a graveyard, and apparently so do many of the thousands of European tourists Anne mentions.  In this case I think the attraction is the story of Greyfriars Bobby.

After the National Museum and lunch we went on to the National Library.  Not a lot there for the everyday tourist like us, but we were quite taken with the exhibition on the resettlement of Scots after the end of WWI (this being soon after the centenary of course).  Some interesting exhibits and also a short film showing lifestyles of the time.  It looks like life was quite hard and many returned soldiers felt they'd been forgotten.  Housing in the cities was in critically short supply.  Some moved to the Highlands while others took the opportunity to migrate to the further reaches of 'the Empire'.  I'm sure we've all met numerous of the their ancestors over the years.

This was a topical election poster that says 'Mammy and Daddy are going to vote Labour.  Will you?'  Not sure how persuasive this was.  The first Labour PM (Ramsay MacDonald, as you knew of course) didn't take office until 1924.  

We were pretty much ready for a bit of R&R after our day's exertions (it is after all quite hard yards concentrating on all the museum and library exhibits, and Anne is certainly right about the quality of the Museum; one of the very best we've been to).  

We've really enjoyed Edinburgh.  For me the most impressive thing is the architecture.  Beautiful stone buildings absolutely everywhere you look.  But we won't miss the hordes of European tourists one little bit.  At one point today we were passed by two young women with very obvious Scots accents and I remarked how unusual this was.  I doubt very much that our European colleagues will be joining us at our highlands village ... or so we hope.