a -gruesome history lesson

I've been reading an interesting series of books lately by an Indiana author named Anna Lee Huber. The stories take place in Scotland in the 1830's and it was fun to recognize certain historic places mentioned in the books One of the early themes in the books is the fact that at that time anatomists who wanted to learn more about the human body would pay for fresh corpses that they could dissect. Grave robbing became a big business and a few enterprising grave robbers decided to cut out a step by simply killing people and delivering their bodies to the surgeons. Happily, most limited themselves to delivering already dead bodies. Needless to say the relatives of those whose bodies were dug up were not too happy about it. The picture above shows one solution. This cage-like structure is a grave safe. It was installed over a freshly buried body and left for several days until the body would have decomposed enough to be useless to the surgeon. So now you know.

Oban and Mull and Iona

One of our stays on our Scotland tour was the small city of Oban on Oban Bay.  We had this view of the bay from in front of our hotel. From Oban we took a ferry to the island of Mull off the west coast.  The second picture is of the ferry. I took it the evening before we took the ferry and was delighted to find when I got home that I had such a good picture of the boat. Our bus and driver came with us on the ferry to Mull and we were driven across the beautiful island of Mull. It has waterfalls, rushing streams and mountains.  It also has a one lane road from one side of the island to the other.  There are occasional pull offs on either side so drivers can yield to oncoming traffic. This works well as long as everyone is aware of the rules.  We had a close encounter with a tourist who wasn't too sure about shifting gears or yielding. There was no collision, just a near scrape. Our bus driver Kevin said some things which it was probably just as well we couldn't understand. Turns out that, although he had been driving buses for over ten years, this was his first trip across Mull. From Mull we took a passenger ferry to the island of Iona where Christianity was introduced to Scotland by the Irish monk, St. Columba in the 6th century AD. The oldest part of the cathedral there dates from the 12th century. It was a fascinating place which I would have enjoyed more if it hadn't been raining quite so much. Ah well, perhaps I shall have to go back.

my opinion

One of my granddaughters slept over last night and we stayed up late to watch the end of the Democratic convention. It was certainly an interesting week of speeches and promises. I was in Scotland during the Republican convention so I don't have a basis for comparison but I'm finding it much easier to consider voting for Hilary than I did before Trump won the Republican nomination. While I was in London (a short visit before Scotland) Great Britain voted to leave the EU after which their Prime Minister resigned and Theresa May replaced him.  While we were in Scotland Ms. May came to visit the Scots prime minister, also a woman.  Are you seeing a trend here?  I think it's high time we had a woman president, and, considering the alternative, I sincerely hope this is the year. My granddaughter agrees with me. Too bad she won't be able to vote for five more years.

A fond last look at London

I know I'm backtracking here but I wanted to include a few last pictures of London. There are really still red phone boxes on the street corners. I found the dinosaur startling. Could there be a more "London" picture than Big Ben on a cloudy day? After two days in London we took a train to
Edinburgh, Scotland. Being a Harry Potter fan, I was thrilled to be leaving from King's Cross Station.
I even bought lunch from the trolley pushed up and down the train aisle by a cheery young lady.

Scottish sheep

We saw lots of beautiful towns and churches on our tour of Scotland, and one pretty well know golf course at St. Andrews, but, far and away, one of the most fun side trips was a visit to a sheep farm; make that sheep estate.  We met the shepherd (top picture) who grazes sheep over an 11,000 acre estate with the help of his wonderfully trained Scotland sheep dogs. He had nine dogs, each of which responded to its own whistles and verbal signals (all very quiet). One of the dogs was blind but it still did its job guided by the shepherd's voice.  Pretty amazing. He had a small flock of sheep pastured near where we stood and the dogs took turns herding the sheep. The dogs obviously loved what they were doing and even the sheep seemed to be getting into the game and having fun.  The shepherd also demonstrated shearing a ram the old fashioned way - with hand shears. Turns out when you flip a sheep on its back it just lies there quietly and lets you shear it. A few of our group "helped" with the shearing but I chose to watch.  The little boy in the bottom picture is the shepherd's son, six years old, and already learning his dad's profession. Since I've recently been watching "Monarch of the Glen" on Netflix, I was interested to learn what the 'Laird" of this estate was doing to keep the estate financially solid.  In addition to running sheep (the shepherd had a free hand with this - reporting in once a year) the owner sells hunting permits (no, not for sheep).  For 3,000 pounds a day a hunter can hunt grouse, for more he can hunt deer. Very enterprising, these Scots. Beautiful scenery in the Highlands.

more about London

We had a sunny day to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside the palace because the queen was in residence. I'm pretty sure she would have been glad to see us if she had only known who was outside but there's no arguing with a bunch of marching men in furry hats, not to mention the ones on big horses.

Finally, some pictures

Don't know why my computer wouldn't cooperate last night but tonight I finally was able to download my trip pictures.  Four of us started the trip with two days in London and my roommate and I (top picture in Trafalgar Square) were booked into a sweet hotel called Dukes of London, listed as one of the top small hotels in Europe. It was a lovely building in a quiet cul de sac with excellent service. When we arrived early we were seated in a charming parlor and served tea and biscuits while we waited - a very short wait. When we came back from our first day of sightseeing we found this yummy spread waiting for us in our room; juicy almost purple peaches, sweet little lemon tarts  and a jar of homemade potato chips. I don't usually take pictures of food but this was worth remembering. The second night a complimentary bottle of champagne was waiting. Not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, we drank almost all of it. If I ever get back to London, I will definitely stay at Dukes.

more fun Scottish phrases

Having some trouble downloading my pictures so will entertain you with more phrases from the Scottish highlands.  We got drookit a couple of time during heavy rains.  Drookit means drenched. Happily this didn't happen often. Business people really do carry their umbrellas with them all the time in London and Edinburgh. You dicht with a clout (wipe or wash something with a cloth). Unfortunately this concept doesn't extend to the shower - no washcloths anywhere. A kist is a chest or box. To blether is to chat or talk or talk too much. If something, like a bed sheet, becomes bumfled it needs to be smoothed out. So now you know.

a learning experience

I'm just back from a vacation in Scotland.  It was billed as a Presbyterian heritage tour and I did learn some things about those early Presbyterians but I also picked up some other fascinating bits of information. First of all, refreshingly, they seldom mention US politics at all. Secondly, some people from Glasgow are very hard to understand, like our bus driver. He was presumably speaking English but at a speed and with a dialect that made it difficult for even our tour leader (a Scotsman himself) to understand. I did learn some interesting new words and phrases though.  If you get very angry you're likely to "go your dinger". Our driver almost went his dinger when a tourist trying to pass our bus on a one lane road with occasional pull offs to allow cars going the other way to pass almost hit the bus and couldn't seem to find reverse. Happily this all took place in slow motion. No crash, no one was hurt, just a little excitement.  In case you're wondering the one-lane road was the only road across the island of Mull which we had to cross to get to the island of Iona, an ancient religious site.  We didn't learn until days later that this was the first time our bus driver (who had been driving buses for 10 years) had ever driven across Mull.  This incident reinforced for me the absolute sureness that I will never drive myself anywhere in Great Britain.

I love a parade!

When I moved downtown I promised myself that I would take advantage of events that I could walk to and I've had lots of opportunities lately.Today I walked four blocks and watched the Three Rivers Festival Parade and it was everything a parade should be - floats, marching bands, old cars, a variety of queens and princesses and lots of groups walking for their cause.  I was really pleased with the patriotism of it all and with the attitude of the people around me.  They cheered and applauded for the national guard units and the WW2 and Korean War veterans. That;s to be expected, but they also cheered for the police, the gay pride group, the Sikhs who had served in American armed services, a group of Buddhist monks, and much more.  it made me proud to be from Fort Wayne - an apparently very inclusive community. I didn't walk with the group from our church but I was pleased to see them walk by. The only tiny glitch in the festivities that I saw was the diversion of the giant blue mastodon balloon.  I was standing just north of the railroad overpass on Calhoun Street and saw the realization dawn on the drivers / guiders of the big balloon when they realized it wasn't going to make it under the bridge. It was diverted to a side street and slowly deflated as the rest of the parade went on. I was also pleased with how colleges had units in the parade. Ball State mad a good showing and so did Purdue. I will definitely go back next year.

Enjoyed a wonderul concert tonight

A friend took me to hear The King's Singers this evening. In the program it says The King's Singers "are consummate entertainers" and "remain one of the world's finest vocal ensembles." I believe it. The event took place in Trinity English Lutheran Church, a beautiful, large, old (1920's?) Gothic style downtown church here in Fort Wayne.  This church has amazing acoustics and that was demonstrated stunningly by the six singers who comprise The King's Singers.  When they first processed in, singing variations on the Lord's Prayer and sounding like a monks' choir, I found myself wondering where the other singers were. Somehow they made their six amazing voices sound like a choir of 30. It was really an excellent evening of worshipful and fun music. It was also, by the way, the final evening of the ALCM (American Lutheran Coral Musicians) conference and the church was packed. Kudos to Trinity English and The King's Singers.

Before books on tape or CD

I saw a good movie today.  Not sure about the reviews but I enjoyed it. "The Legend of Tarzan" took elements of the original Tarzan story and spun off a whole new episode much as the original author did in his series. As I watched the movie I was reminded of a family vacation sometime in the late 1970's or early 80's. This was one of our family's many driving trips out west.  While we saw many wonderful sites, this particular trip also involved some long stretches of driving across Kansas and Nebraska. No insult intended but these are not the visual highlights of our western states. To pass the time and keep the children and my husband entertained as he drove I started reading aloud the first of the Tarzan books.  I had brought along the first four and when these were done we had to find more.  Fortunately we found a bookstore in a small town in Kansas with an owner who was a huge Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. She had the next several episodes in stock so we bought and read the next five.  If you don't remember the series, each novel ends with a cliff hanger (sometimes literally) which compels you to read the next one. I did a lot of reading and not much driving on that trip. A fun time to remember.

I'm trying to be good

From time to time I try to get serious about loosing a little weight. This usually happens after I step on the scale. One of the best weight loss tips I've read is to not eat anything after 6pm each evening which is OK if you eat dinner at 5. But apart from the timing problem, even if I tell myself it's alright to keep eating until say 6:30, I'm still faced with another problem - evening TV commercials.  I'm pretty sure at least 30% of all evening commercials have to do with food, delicious looking food. Based on the Arby's add I just saw for brown sugar bacon, it's a good thing I don't live near any fast food places. I need to stop writing now.  My refrigerator is calling to me. I'm pretty sure it's the last of the lemon birthday cake rather than the celery that will leap out at me yelling "Eat me!!!"

Rubic's Cube magic

I think all of us have played with a Rubic's Cube at one time or another, you know, the little cubes with colored tiles that you can twist and turn until each side is a solid color.  Or, if you get really frustrated like me you can peal the little stickers off and rearrange them.  I'm not the only one who ever resorted to this solution either.  For a while you could buy replacement stickers to refresh your Rubic's Cube. This evening I watched a magician on America's Got Talent, one of my favorite shows because of the really weird talent that shows up, who did his magic trick with a Rubic's Cube. Somehow he managed to rearrange a cube, solving the puzzle, while it was in a paper bag. Actually he did several related tricks. Maybe you had to see it, but I thought it was pretty impressive. It did not, however, give me the urge to rush out and buy a new cube. I'll leave it to the expert.

more and more fireworks

I invited my family over for a 4th of July and birthday-eve dinner this evening. It's my brother's birthday tomorrow. The idea was that we would have dinner, visit, and about 9:30 walk to a nearby park to watch the downtown fire works.  However when we walked out of my building we discovered that there was a perfect view from the parking lot right here. So we found a comfy stretch of curb and enjoyed a spectacular show being shot off the top of the electric company building.  For a minute a had a twinge of balcony envy, thinking how nice it was for the people with apartments on the south side of our building to be able to sit on their balconies and watch the show. As I was riding back up in the elevator, though, I met a couple who live on my side of the building. They told me to be sure to watch from my balcony because fireworks would be going off all over the north side of Ft. Wayne and beyond and they were so right. There are sporadic bursts of fireworks all around me.  I'm also really intrigued with the 'glow balls' that people are sending up into the air.  In the dark they look like little orange balls of fire just quietly floating along - a nice contrast to the frantic pace of the fireworks.  My son tells me these 'glow balls' are fire (a candle?) supported by a framework under a small hot air balloon. As the interior of the balloon heats up the balloons float up, up and away. At night all you see is the glowing fire, very cool.  I want to launch one next year, maybe off my balcony???

Honor your father and mother.

Our pastors are working through a sermon series on the ten commandments this summer.  This morning the commandment was "Honor your father and mother...." (the 5th commandment if you're Presbyterian or Methodist, the 4th commandment in the Lutheran or Catholic list). I sat between two of my granddaughter as the pastor began his sermon thinking listen up girls, this is important for you to hear. Then as he got a little further into the sermon the pastor explained that this commandment was not originally given to children but to adults.  The sense of the commandment is for adult children to honor and take care of their aging parents. What a fine idea. Who shall I move in with?

something else I wonder about

Is there really any money there?  I love online banking, I really do. It's so convenient to sit here in my pajamas and transfer funds from savings to checking (it seldom goes the other way) or to schedule a payment on a credit card or utility bill but sometimes I wonder if there is really any actual money behind it all? I mean I know there's a little bit somewhere. I can, after all, do a quick drive through at an ATM machine and get actual cash out. But all these numbers that flit back and forth via wifi, mine and everyone else's, I just imagine numbers being passed back and forth endlessly without ever touching actual money.  I guess it really doesn't matter when you thin k about it.  After all, paper bills and coins are also just tokens of value that is supposed to be out there somewhere. Maybe I need to take a trip to Fort Knox to reassure myself.

an enthusiasm of fireworks

There are flocks of geese, murders of crows, herds of elephants and schools of fish so why not enthusiasms of fireworks?  I think that's what;s going on this evening. Fireworks are being shot off to the east and west of my apartment in at least four different locations.We're not talking little sparklers here but big splendid, high in the sky sprays of color and light.  All this and it's only July 1. I can't wait for the 4th.