Further Explorations in Scotland

On our third day in Stirling, I attended the British Tapestry Group (BTG) Conference at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, just down hill from the castle.

Standing outside waiting for the doors to open, who should I bump into but a friend, and fellow American Tapestry Alliance board member from Canada. It was great to see so many tapestry weavers gathered; I met some new people, and had time to talk with people I’d met before. I’ll post details on my tapestry blog, Tangled Web.

In conjunction with the conference, “Weaving Within,” an exhibit of small tapestries by members of the BTG was extremely impressive. There is a lot of talent and training in this group. You can still see this exhibit until November 8, so if you’re in the area, don’t miss it.

That evening Kim and I joined about 33 tapestry weavers and their families for dinner at a local restaurant. We sat next to a tapestry weaver who is a doctor, in General Practice. It was fascinating to hear about the British health care system: the National Health Service. One difference between the NHS, and the US system, is that instead of being reimbursed mainly for procedures as American doctors are, British doctors are given bonuses for outcomes. Thus they are required to keep very detailed records to indicate what percentage of their patients are improving: for example: the percentage of diabetic patients who have their blood sugar under control, the percentage of epileptics who are not having seizures, etc. No system is perfect, but the conversation was very enlightening in lieu of the current health care overhaul discussions in the USA.

On Sunday Kim and I took a bus to the nearby Trossachs National Park. It was a “hop on hop off” bus, but we discovered that if we hopped off, and hopped back on the next bus, we’d have to wait hours for the bus back to Stirling. I was tired, because I had a cold which had gone to my chest, and I had not slept well, so we just rode around on the bus, admiring the scenery.

We were able to hop off for a few minutes at Loch Katrine, and then spent a little time in Callander, stocking up on cough drops. The town was full of tourist shops, and mobbed with people enjoying the excellent weather we had brought with us!

Did I mention that for the entire 3 week trip, everywhere we went, we were warned about the cold weather, high winds and floods, and then when we arrived, the rain disappeared, the sun came out and it warmed up to a nice 70 degrees? We were very popular, and people were quite interested to know how long we planned to stay!

On Monday Kim went to Edinburgh to visit a scientist, and I had planned to go along and explore, but I was too tired. Partly from lack of sleep, and partly from 3 weeks of traveling; I didn’t have the mental energy to deal with another new place. I had wondered how long it would take me to get to that point, and I can say now, that it takes about 19 days!

So I just walked back up to the castle, stopping on the way to visit the Star Pyramid in the Valley Cemetery, between the castle and the Church of the Holy Rude. The cemetery includes gravestones from as early as 1579, and the Pyramid was built in 1863 to commemorate those who died for religious freedom.

At the castle, I paid another L9, and this time I got to see Meiko weaving on the Unicorn Tapestry, and hear her version of the talk. This project is so impressive, and the patience, skill and dedication of the weavers is amazing. Meiko was weaving a small orange tree, and she expected to be weaving that tree until December!

In a stroke of brilliance, Kim found a driver who would take us to the airport on Tuesday morning. It was well worth the price, considering how early we’d have to get up to walk, dragging our large suitcases, all the way to the train station, take the train to Edinburgh, then switch to the airport bus. Instead we were picked up at the door, rode in comfort and were dropped right at the airport entrance for our short flight to Zurich, on the way to our temporary home in Interlaken.

Our travels in Sweden, Denmark, Wales, England and Scotland had turned out even better than we’d hoped.

Nevertheless, after three weeks living out of suitcases we were looking forward to getting unpacked and settling down for the next two and a half months.