Day 28, Tuesday, October 13, "Quirks"

Hello to you all. Yesterday David left early to go to the university. I set off for the grocery store and several other paths. I thought today, I would show you a little of this and a little of that or "bits and bobs" as they say here. Edinburgh is a city where most people live in multi-family homes with little or no land. So they have what they call "allotments". The city provides small plots of land which you can sign up for. You can grow whatever you like- veggies, flowers, herbs etc. Once you apply and are granted an allotment, you can keep it for life. If you give it up, the allotment will be assigned to the first person on the waiting list.  The waiting list is fairly long!

You can see that they also build garden sheds. Some are rough and crude while some are detailed and well made. Some have chairs and other luxuries where neighboring gardeners sit and chat.

In this closer view you can see sunflowers, brussel sprouts, lettuces and herbs. I think those are tomatoes on the left but with temp at 7-17 C (low 40s to highs of 50/60) I don't think they are getting fruit!










Here is the footpath I took to see the allotments. It is called Leith walk.  Leith is Edinburgh's port city located about 2 miles north of city centre.  There is a gentle stream here called "the waters of Leith."  I passed people walking, riding bikes, about 5 different dogs and some baby carriages complete with babies.

We have shown you a lot of pictures of the beautiful limestone buildings here in Edinburgh. Many people, including ourselves live in these buildings that have been divided into flats or apartments. But I thought you might like to see some examples of houses that people live in that are much newer construction. As is the case everywhere, some are very nice and some are not so nice.

  If you walk up our street toward the foot path we take to buy our groceries, you come to a neighborhood of these homes.  They are obviously fairly modern and most are what they call semi-detached meaning they contain at least two homes but not the long line of flats that are more common in the older buildings. They still don't have a lot of land but more than the older buildings in general.

  Here is another, even newer example. Again these are semi-detatched homes with a little more attempt to give each owner some separation and privacy. The extrances are on each end and there is a little wall down the front between their gardens. (front yards to me and you)

This home is on the walk up to Goldenacres, where I was heading to do a little more shopping. Remember the flower shop we showed you in an early post where we bought the plants for our little pot outside our door? I passed by yesterday and saw these interesting arrangements and thought you might like to see them.

Halloween Berrie wreaths. I didn't know they celebrated Halloween here too. They are pretty wreaths of fall veggies, berries, foliage and a few had candles. The price would be 6 pounds 99p (about $11-12 dollars) depending on the exchange rate for that day.

Finally. I wanted to talk about Charity Shops. All over the U.K. there are little shops that sell used items and donate the money to a charity. Each shop will tell you on the windows, inside or even in the name, which charity receives the money raised by their activities. Only very nice donated items are for sell. Everything is in great condition, spotlessly clean so it's acceptable to shops there. You can find brand new things too that stores have been donated. You never know what you might find and, of course, the prices are amazing.  People do not get a tax deduction for charitable donations here as in the US.  So different strategies are used to raise money for your favorite charity. 

When David was here for 6 months in the winter and spring of 2000, he forgot to bring a sweater with him.  Now, mind you, I don't think he wears sweaters in Houston, at all.  Since people keep their flats at about 58 to 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the winter, most folks wear sweaters indoors.  So he went up to a charity shop  near the university and picked up two sweaters made of Scottish wool for about 3 pounds each.  From time to time you find real bargains, we have picked up some kitchen items and a big piece of luggage in a charity shop on this trip.

 

Each culture has its unique features and that is one of the things we have really enjoyed about our visit. Tomorrow we are taking a train to Stirling so more about that later. Have a wonderful day.