All's Well that Ends Well, or, Awesome Castle Pictures in Penance for my Skipped (May) Blog

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; May was a month of few pictures but many, many words. Most of May is a blur, in my head: I forgot the month many times, the date almost every day, the day of the week on countless occasions, and even, occasionally, the year. One thing I know: there was cake.

The cake is indicative of a greater blessing: our cooker (stove), which essentially sometime around the second week of Lent (early March, for the non-liturgical) was replaced by a fancy, new, and legitimately safe version. [This is our third flat since moving to Britain, and our fifth cooker. In the Tower Flat last year, the original oven door broke, and after months of persuasion we were able to get a new stove. The workman informed us that we had been working on a quarter of the suggested power, in that the electric lines had never been hooked up properly. Our first cooker in our current flat failed to meet safety regulations with respect to the exhaust system, space around it, and counter height, and was--apparently--a proper fire hazard.] I baked a cake to celebrate; it was a modified form of Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake, which is genuinely one of the best and easiest recipes I have ever used. (For those of you who are worried about our alcohol consumption--or might skip this recipe because of the beer--the ethanol evaporates in cooking, but the resulting cake is very very light from the yeast and very very moist from the extra liquid. Also, it uses fewer pans than any other cake recipe I've ever used, which is a huge perk in my book).

Also in May, I went to an awesome conference in Sheffield that was all about manuscripts. It was as wonderful as my Durham conference from two years ago: I met many fellow postgraduates and future colleagues (if all goes well) and was really blessed by the time and feedback given by the senior academics in attendance. Many of the greatest manuscript scholars still living came to deliver papers, chair panels, or even just sit in on the sessions, and they were wonderfully encouraging and helpful. Also, somewhat uniquely, we had two conference dinners: one formal meal in the amazing Cutler's Hall, and a buffet in a converted mill on the waterfront. The food was great, but the really wonderful bit was the mingling: at the first dinner, the senior scholars paired up and distributed themselves--two or three to a table--among all of the other attendees. Early modern scholars are some of the nicest people I've ever met, but early modern manuscript scholars are even more so.

The Great Blur of May lifted in early June, when I sent an ambitious complete draft to my supervisor and then took a week off for the first time in months. My friend R. came to visit from the States, so we spent six days bumbling around Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Aberdeen, enjoying touristy things (and charity shops) by day and watching British television--the amazing, our favourite quiz thing, and the absolutely horrific--in the evenings. [And, seriously, if you watch those four clips, you will get what I. and I consider the best and most entertainingly awful of British entertainment].

For tourism, R. and I started at Edinburgh Castle, which has some spectacular views over the city. It was (as you can see) a very misty day.

I've mentioned, before, the cannon that fires a shot at one o'clock:

Walking is a big part of our lives in the UK, and my dear friend was subjected to many miles of it; on perhaps the sunniest day of her trip, we also climbed lovely Calton Hill, a small hill (but a very hot climb on a sunny day) with some nice views of Edinburgh from the top. This is the view to the North, including Leith, where I. and I live.

The view to the South is mostly dominated by Arthur's Seat and Holyrood Park.

To the west: the Castle (top left), Waverley Train Station (clock tower right of center), Prince's Street (just to the right of the clock tower) and the Houses of Parliament (dominating the bottom left third of the photo).

We also visited some friends in Aberdeenshire, located about halfway between Edinburgh and Inverness on the eastern coast of Scotland. We visited lovely Dunottar Castle in Stonehaven [their website photo gives you a much better sense of the awesome isolation of the castle], almost completely isolated from the mainland.

View from the castle towards nearby Stonehaven:

Former kitchen:

In the afternoon, we visited a nature reserve to the north of Aberdeen. The beaches were lovely.

The most exciting part of the reserve was the seals: the black bits on the sand are hundreds and hundreds of seals.

Towards the end of the day, we spent a rainy day in St Andrews, climbing St Rule's Tower for a stunning view of the town, nipping into cafes when it rained, and even braving the tunnels underneath the castle:

After R. departed (alas!) I spent a few days running around madly, finishing paperwork and getting the penultimate copies (God willing) of my thesis printed and submitted. I submitted on one of the wettest days in June, braving sheets of pouring rain with a thesis wrapped in rubbish bags to keep it dry.

I've spent the last week in bed with a cold, but have a busy July lined up and am looking forward to getting my camera off the shelf again. Therefore, I've designated July another "Photo Project Month," a la December, and am going to try to take and upload a photo each day throughout the month. (I also have a lot of travel lined up for July, so the uploads may occasionally occur belatedly, as internet access allows).

Come visit! You too could see castles and eat cake!