Big city, small city

It seems like such a long time ago now, but today’s post is about two cities that I visited in January.  One is in Scotland and one is in England, and even though they are in different countries, I was struck by the similarities.

At the beginning of the year (right after New Year, in fact!), my Canadian cousin came to stay with us for a week.  It’s funny – I’ve known her all my life and we’ve met up at various times as we were growing up and more recently with her own family, been pen pals, had video chats when that technology became available – but we’ve never actually spent as much time together as we were planning to do for that week.  It never remotely occurred to me that we wouldn’t get on – and we got on like a house on fire.  It was such a good week and I was sorry to wave her off at the airport.

During the week she was here, we headed up to Edinburgh for a few days to catch up with some more relatives.  I found it quite odd at first to have conversations about “our” grandad or “our” relatives as being so far away across the world, I never really thought about them being shared by us!

So, the first city for this post is Edinburgh.  Capital of Scotland and a fabulous city to explore whether you live in the United Kingdom or not.  We stayed in the Old Town in a quirky hotel on Grassmarket which was a short walk from the train station.  We had a bit of a hairy trip up as many trains were cancelled by the snow at the beginning of the year, but obviously someone was smiling on us as we managed to get to our first connection station just as the next train was pulling in, having been delayed by a few minutes.  It was the same for every train we had to catch and we were very glad of those late trains!  Ordinarily, we’d have taken the West Coast Mainline but it was closed for repair so we went cross-country instead and then up the east coast.  I’ve never travelled that way by train before and it was beautiful.  You could see right out to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) at one point which was fabulous as I’ve always wanted to see it.  One day, I’ll get a bit closer!

This was taken at Berwick-upon-Tweed – can you see the arches of the viaduct?  I love a viaduct, as you may know, and there are plenty of bridges and viaducts along this stretch of the line.  This particular viaduct is called the Royal Border Bridge, although actual border crossing into Scotland is a bit further north.

We arrived in Edinburgh in the early afternoon and walked across the city to Grassmarket (maybe with a bit of an unintentional detour as I suddenly lost all ability to read the map on my phone 🙂 ).  The best way to get to Grassmarket from the Royal Mile (the main street running down from the castle), in my opinion, is down Victoria Street.  This is now a UNESCO World Heritage site; a curving, cobblestone road with brightly coloured shops and an upper row (Victoria Terrace) which takes you right out of the present day and whisks you off to another time.  It doesn’t matter that there are modern shops or pizza restaurants nearby; walking down that steep road, you could be in any time – particularly if you can get there early in the day before the other visitors arrive.

Our main reason for travelling to Edinburgh was to spend time with our relatives, and it was really lovely to see them and have a proper catch up.  I’ve seen our relatives more recently than my cousin but the time still passes and you realise that “recently” might have been 10 years ago – or even longer.  We had never met some of the family before and we were so happy that we got to say hello.

It’s surprising what you can pack into a couple of days in a city – well, I guess that’s what a city break is all about!  We went up to the castle, of course …

It seems incredible to me that you can have a castle like this right on your doorstep, but there are lots of places in the UK where that’s the case.  Being a small island, we were always being invaded at one time or another in the past, or fighting amongst ourselves which necessitated lots of castles.  I can never help thinking about the thousands of feet that will have walked up to that doorway – or about the people who built it.  Edinburgh is definitely a city where you have to look up because the stonemasonry is not something to be missed!

I think I prefer this view of the castle though …

and not just because there was breakfast on the table!  This is the view from the Willow Tea Rooms on Princes Street, which is a Charles Rennie Mackintosh-themed tea room with the most amazing view across to the castle.  My cousin loves Rennie Mackintosh and this place was a recommendation from one of our other cousins, so I’m telling you about it too 🙂  You can’t see so well from the photo but the castle is perched right on the very edge of the hill and from our seats, we could see blocked up doors and old steps that obviously went right down the hill, and we marvelled at the ingenuity of the architects and the skill of the builders to have built a castle on what looks like a very precarious point.  The first construction was in the year 1130 and the castle as it stands now is one of the oldest fortified places in Europe.  We didn’t have time to go inside on this visit, but there’s always next time …

Shortly before we left the city, we took a quick walk around the Old Town.  Firstly, up the The Vennel, which is several flights of stone steps taking you up and out of Grassmarket and rewarding you with another fine view of the castle.

then around past George Heriots school which is a very grand building and looks like another castle.  Further on and round the corner is Greyfriars Kirk (church), and if you think you might have heard the name “Greyfriars” before, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the famous little dog connected with it.

“Bobby” sat on his master’s grave for 14 years after he died, refusing to leave except for one meal a day at a local coffee house.  He touched the hearts of the people of Edinburgh who looked after the little dog as best they could, and this statue was erected in 1973 after Bobby himself had died.  There have been lots of films and stories about him; you can read more about him here.  We patted Bobby’s nose and headed back to the hotel to collect our bags.  It was time to go home.

 

Almost as soon as I was back and had waved my cousin off on her journey back to her family, laden down with gifts and sweeties that they can’t buy locally (we had a lovely time shopping in the supermarket confectionary aisle!), I was off on my travels again.  This time, I was heading up to Carlisle to meet my friend Lucy of Attic24: we were out on a yarny adventure!

We were on our way to Tullie House Museum in Carlisle for an evening lecture given by Kaffe Fassett.  Well, we were both beside ourselves with excitement!  I’ve seen Kaffe Fassett once years ago when he came to Black Sheep Wools but this was the first time Lucy had been to one of his lectures.  It was part of an exhibition on colour and one of his quilts was on show …

Isn’t that amazing?  Up close, you could see the thousands of pieces that have gone into it, all stitched meticulously together to produce something worthy of hanging on a wall.

The lecture was really interesting, too.  Brandon Mably, another excellent quilt designer, Kaffe’s husband and manager of Kaffe Fassett Studio, was also there and his “warm up” talk was fun and affectionate – by the time the man himself appeared, the room was buzzing with the energy of anticipation.  At nearly 90 years of age, Kaffe Fassett has led an extraordinary creative life which encompasses knitwear, painting and quilting – anything that involves colour, really!  He’s full of energy too, and I hope that I am still bouncing up stairs when I’m nearly 90! 🙂

Isn’t this quilt beautiful?  They are absolutely my colours and I would definitely find room for this in my house!

There were no books for sale at this event (probably just as well as Lucy was on the train and my bookshelves are full) but there was still time to say hello.  In this photo, Kaffe is to the left and Brandon to the right.

Oh, and here’s a certain blogger that you might know chatting about the Kaffe Fassett-designed cardigan that she’s wearing.  Clearly I was in full flow waving my hands about 🤣  You can see the cardigan in all its glory here – and I’ve just realised that the colours are very similar to the quilt behind, which is probably why I liked it so much.

Lucy and I didn’t have as long in Carlisle as I’d spent with my cousin in Edinburgh, and it rained pretty much all of the time we were there so we weren’t inclined to go exploring, although we both said we’d like to go back.

Instead, we did a bit of shopping (Søstrene Grene is a favourite haunt) and quite a bit of knitting, crochet and chatting over a brew …

You can tell this photo was taken a while ago as these socks are finished now and are now being worn!  I posted a photo of them here.

And here are we two looking very pleased with ourselves at being able to spend a whole 24 hours in each other’s company 🙂

Before long, it was time to head to the station for Lucy’s train and I had the long drive back to Winwick.  I’d have liked to have got the train myself, but the West Coast Mainline was still being repaired and the motorway was by far the quickest journey.

On the way back to the station, we passed the castle …

Except this isn’t a castle, this is one of the old gates into the city (thank you Sue for putting me right – the castle is further round!)  But it’s another castle-style building that you can just walk up to; it’s in the middle of the city and is just part of the urban landscape.  It’s built of very lovely sandstone and I’m always drawn to that.  It had been a short but sweet visit, and I had thoroughly enjoyed this one, too.

 

Big city, small city … here are a few facts!

Edinburgh population 564,000

Carlisle population 110,000

Both have cathedrals – Carlisle has one (Carlisle cathedral); Edinburgh has three (St Giles, St Mary’s, St Mary’s Episcopal)

Both have castles …

 

And I visited them both in January.  That’s a fact I’m definitely very pleased about!