Scotland, Northern Islands...

 

It seems useful [most of all to me!] to review this map of our ship's route as I continue to grok all the parts piled-up into my still muddled memories of this entire piece of travel.  As I push to finish blogging about it before we leave on the next trip I wonder idly about the sense & more-so of any sensibility of moving around the planet at our current pace. We have become a little manic in using the time we have left with stamina & health enough to survive into a proper dotage. I'm looking forward to a more creative spell of working & creating visually as well as verbally. I want to draw as well as playing with words. That's my better dream of "retirement"... It will come...

I remember from grade school, the apocryphal story about Robert the Bruce taking a lesson on fighting for the Scottish independence... from a persistent spider who kept patiently rebuilding it's web.  This sculpture celebrates the laurels of such patience.

 

 

We sailed north to stop on the Orkney Islands, deeper into the historical mix of the cultures of the North Sea; Vikings Norse, Scottish... touching Britannia. Looking at the map one sees the zig-zag which, after cruising down the east coast to Edinburgh & Aberdeen, we go back even farther north to Shetland Island before ending the cruise in Bergen, Norway... full-to-exploding with history to begin digesting.  

 

 So, since they are also close in my photo file, I share a photo from one of our tour bus stops to meet some of those gentle Shetland ponies... but I also enjoyed the herds of sheep as being more useful for their wool, which I would have enjoyed, shopping for the flat hat I'm wanting... if we'd had more time. [Ah... that complaint again about the rushed cruise schedule!] 

Look at the serenity of that view toward the sea!

Such a house seems part of a romantically desolate novel

 

We found a great museum with rich exhibits of objects fascinating to my interest in kitchen

& more specially in jewelry. A good collection of a basic pin called a fibula, which is a beautifully simple design, also inviting complicated decoration. It predates Rome where it was functional with togas & become essential with Scottish kilts. It is a concept I long hoped to use as inspiration for a GRB design, but I've satisfied myself by having an enameled antique Victorian version which I've happily worn, sometimes to clasp a tie. 

I enjoyed seeing the Celtic concepts I have so long used in my own ways.

There was even an ancient bell!

Mark did indeed get to see the Scottish castles which were his initial request to see, but we'd seen numerous better ones before braving the Fringe Festival crowds below our steep climb up to the walls of Edinburgh Castle on the hot day we were there. Eventually our need for lunch & a beer enticed the the three of us brothers to cool-off in a happy pub upstairs above the street. 

As I've been doing, I enjoy sharing bits of functional detail which would be casually overlooked but which captivate my eyes, like this handsome cast concrete balustrade...  

Or a more utilitarian pipe railing with cast iron finials, made more remarkable for being boldly colored...
Then a mat designed for traction as we returned to the boat...