Two Things Tuesday

Today I kept it to just two things, but I went deep with them both.  The focus was on St. Cuthbert's Kirk and on Craigmillar Castle.  I start with a picture of the organ at St. Cuthbert's Kirk because  .  .  .

I GOT TO PLAY IT!!!

You'd think I had come to Edinburgh JUST for St. Cuthbert's, as I have been there at least once per day for the last four days!  I was so sad when the organist didn't show yesterday, but I knew that the church would be open to visitors today (only Tuesday from 10am to 1pm), so I came in.  One of the guides was a lady I'd had coffee with Sunday after church, and when I let her know that it hadn't worked out yesterday, she scrambled around to see if she could find someone official who could OK me playing, and she did, and he did, so I did.

This is THE biggest organ in Edinburgh (by 2 stops).   The organ pipes/cases are on the north side of the church, and the console is opposite.

So  .  .  .  though this is a bit of a comedy of errors - with the man trying to use my camera struggling with it almost as much as I struggled with an unfamiliar organ (the pedal board felt SO different) - yet I'm posting it.  It's proof that I did this, and, in addition to that, the video shenanigans that go on end up showing the organ, the pipes, my playing and also recording the lovely Scottish accent of the person helping me!

Here is the organist's view of the congregation.

It is such a tight squeeze to get to the bench!  This picture doesn't do justice to just how tight this is!

You get here, of course, by secret staircase and through a locked door. :-)

Here are the lovely ladies who helped me this morning, Anne and Jean.

They not only got me set up on the organ, but they were so delighted with my playing (really?!) that they kept giving me gifts from the tourist shop.  This concerned me a bit, as the church costs a lot to keep up.  They kept handing me things saying, "Here, you should have this.  Your playing was so lovely.  We enjoyed it so much! I think you'd like this.  I want you to have this."  I got postcards and books and pamphlets.  We did a lot of talking, so they knew of my interest in mathematician John Napier who had been an elder at St. Cuthbert's in the 16th century, and so they handed me a book on Napier.  I was blown away by their graciousness and by how much they liked my playing!  It's not that they are lacking for excellent organists in this area!  (Anyway, I made sure to slip a big donation into the box; I'm just so grateful for my interactions with this place over the last four days and also in my previous two trips to Edinburgh.)

I had shown up this morning with very little hope of playing the organ.  I was here because it was my chance to take pictures of the interior, which is stunning - including, among other things, a Tiffany window and a marble sculpture of da Vinci's Last Supper.

The stained glass window of David below is the Tiffany window.

It's style is quite different from the other windows, which are more like the one below.

The next picture is of the memorial chapel, dedicated to the Scotsmen who lost their lives in The First World War.  If I remember my history correctly, one in three Scottish men died in WWI, so Scotland was hit quite hard.  (Aside: Agatha Christie was married in this chapel - to her second husband.)

I went to St. Cuthbert's a second time today and up a second secret staircase  .  .  .

  .  .  .  and up a secret (very vertical) ladder and through a trap door  .  .  .

  .  .  .  and up another secret ladder and through another trap door  .  .  .

  .  .  .  in order to get to these bad boys!!!

These pictures are fuzzy because although I got my very unfit and slightly terrified old body up those ladders and through the trap doors, I didn't quite dare get all the way out up top - as there was not much to stand on, and I wasn't sure I could get myself back on the ladder rungs to get back down again from that precarious position, so I craned around backwards and took the pictures while trying not to lose my footing or my grip on a girder above!  And then it was back down the two ladders and into the ringing chamber.

The ringers were late, very late, in coming.  Yesterday had been a bank holiday, so I imagine some people were out of town or living at a little different pace today.  Since the tower leader (that's not the right term, but I can't remember what it is) and I had a lot of time on our hands.  He suggested I learn to ring.

Um  .  .  .  it had already taken me a lot of courage just to ask to be able to come up here; I've asked before and have been turned down, and I'm shy, and I don't like to learn new things while others are watching.  Not only that, but from cathedral tours I've taken in the past, I know this can actually be dangerous  .  .  .  but what the heck!  Let's do this thing!  I learned how to do the backstroke and the handstroke (which is harder).  Learning to do that kind of reminded me of learning to water ski.  I remember getting tons of directions before my first time skiing and then feeling like I was drowning when I fell and being utterly panicked, because the one piece of directions I hadn't remembered my first time water skiing was, "If you fall, let go of the rope."  It was the same kind of thing, different, but similar.

Anyway, here is what the music (the "diagrams") looks like - with differing levels of difficulty.  I imagine there must be some interesting mathematics behind it.

I'll close the St. Cuthbert's section with two videos of the ringers (some very new to this and some very, very accomplished).  I have so much respect for what they do!  They make this look so easy, but let me assure you, you can't just go in there and start pulling on the ropes!  Also, even though I watched for over an hour, I couldn't figure out how they were doing the changes ups.

This next video is longer, because I included the directions given before this practice.  It sounds like a different language to me, and I had a fun time just listening to their banter.  I noticed that the tenor bell always led out and that the person on that bell directed the others by saying, "One, two  .  .  .  tenor going  .  .  .  tenor gone."  You may be able to hear that, though it's said quite softly in this clip.

So, my day was book-ended with St. Cuthbert's, but in the middle was a trip to Craigmillar Castle.  This is the most impressive castle I have visited.  This castle is the only one I've ever visited that truly felt like it transported me in time.  It's a ruin and has been left in its ruined state, but there's a lot of it left, and it is just a massive maze of staircases and passageways and chambers and towers.  This is a place I wish I could have come to as a child.  I could have played hide-and-seek in here FOREVER!

Building was begun in the 1300s with additions and modifications going on at least until the 1660s - and then was abandoned about 100 years after that.

Looking up into a tower -

Looking down into the Lord's Hall -

There were spiral staircases and surprising passages EVERYWHERE!

Almost all of these staircases are narrow; some are VERY narrow.  Oh, and the opening you see below is for defense with gun.

And some came together at weird angles.

There was one spot in particular where lots of things came together, so I made a little video of that to give a better sense than still photos do.

It took me about 45 minutes to get here from Edinburgh, yet look at the view, you can see the town, including Edinburgh Castle and St. Giles Cathedral, and you can also see Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat!

I also took a 360 degree video of the view from a parapet.  You can't hear me well because of the wind, but you'll see what I've described above and also the Firth of Forth and the Pentland Hills.

This is a dovecot in one of the towers.  Pigeons were kept here for the meat they provided.

And just a couple more views looking back as I leave.  I should add that Mary, Queen of Scots, was a frequent visitor here.  She particularly liked it here for the archery, hawking and riding.