Grab a cup of coffee or anything else and listen to the story of our day!
The day started with me driving down to Jim Dickson’s garage.
I was getting a rough estimate for a couple of bits that were needed for the car and he gave me a reassurance that after a quick look underneath, apart from those bits, the car was fine. That was my mind set at rest for a while. It goes in to get the work done on Monday. It would have been sooner, but Storm Éowyn had driven a cart and horses through everyone’s plans it seemed.
Next stop was Tesco because we needed milk, except they only had the more expensive Cravendale filtered milk, but since it was ‘on special’ it was worth buying. They had absolutely no bread. None! The reason that there was no ‘Tesco’ brand milk and no bread was that Storm Éowyn had driven a cart and …! I’m beginning to think that poor Éowyn is getting the blame for everything including Donald Trump’s bald patch!
Picked up Scamp at the house and we drove down to Croy station car park hoping against hope that there would be an empty space. There wasn’t. However while I was driving back to the exit, I clocked a woman pushing a pram. Maybe, just maybe she was going back to her car and we could pinch her space when she left. Scamp was my lookout and she reported that the lady was reversing out of her space. I managed to get there first before any other vultures arrived and she signalled that she was leaving.
As it turned out she had one young child and a baby and was trying to keep them amused while she bolted them into their car seats. As she got more and more frustrated, Scamp offered to hold the baby while she worked at the car seat for the boy. Finally she go the boy secured and the baby was next, but she couldn’t work out how to get the pram folded and into the boot of her car. She explained that she was ‘the granny’ and that the car was new. Her daughter had dropped the children off at the car park and said it was easy to fold the pram. Actually it looked easy, once you saw how it was designed to fold in both the body of the pram and the wheels. The problem was the big Tesco bag full of baby clothes that was stuffed into the pram. After removing that, everything slipped into place.
After loads of “than-you’s” she reversed out and drove off while I signalled to the three vultures who had been circling that the space was mine. KEEP WELL CLEAR. The look on my face must have been enough. They gave me space and we were parked.
We had just enough time (7mins) to literally, run across the car park just as the train was approaching, buy the tickets, run over the footbridge and jump into the first open carriage before the train departed. I think we might have reached Falkirk before our breathing had returned to normal and our heart rate was no longer in the RED area. The journey to Edinburgh was uneventful by comparison. Did I mention that we were going to Edinburgh to see the Turner watercolours?
We walked from Waverley station to Royal Scottish Academy and joined the queue that was at the bottom of the stairs into the building itself. We were told it would take an hour to an hour and a half to get to the room with the exhibition. Well, we’d come this far and been Good Samaritans for on harassed lady, and run across the carpark then jumped into a train that we were sure would leave without us. Sure, we could handle an hour and a half walking into the gallery.
In the end it took a little more than two hours to follow the snaking line of art lovers to reach our goal. It was a bit like the queue at the airport, without the security check. It was also good humoured and I actually enjoyed most of it. Folding stools were available for those who couldn’t or didn’t want to stand for two and a bit hours. Eventually we reached the exhibition room. At first the paintings were underwhelming, but then, when you saw the vast amounts of detail in the sketches and the lack of detail in the watercolours, you realised just what a genius this man was. People in the paintings were just tiny little brush strokes, but they were obviously people. We were allowed to photograph any and all we wanted. I just chose a selection of my favourites, then we were gone. Out into the cold of Edinburgh. I was reassured when I saw that the queue was just as long as it had been when we had joined.
We had dinner in the posh restaurant below the gallery. Simple Fish ’n’ Chips. Then a cup of take-away coffee before getting the train home.
PoD was a wee asian man taking a photos of two members of his family. I liked his stance!
Well, that was a long story, and I’m sure I’ve missed out some details. I’ll sleep on it tonight and write myself a bullet point list of things to remember. I may post it, but it would probably mean nothing to anyone other than Scamp and me, and maybe a ‘granny’ who was getting flustered trying to fold a pram into the boot of a car while the baby bawled it’s head off!
Tomorrow I may meet Alex for a photo walk.
