A Trip To Edinburgh

Rob and I spent Monday and Tuesday in Edinburgh to celebrate our 19th Wedding Anniversary.

We started off in North Berwick, a seaside town to the East of Edinburgh. Lunch was at The Buttercup Cafe, a small establishment, where the food was good and the staff were very friendly.

We stayed in the Murrayfield Hotel, quite near to the centre. Our room had a comfortable bed, a good selection of toiletries, soft towels, nice teas and coffee available, and Tunnock's wafers! The downside was that some sort of machinery (a pump?) kept going on and off all night and meant that we didn't get much sleep. Another room might have been better, though.

Monday was taken up with shopping in Princes Street and George Street, a meal at Wagamama and watching 'Whiplash' at the cinema (all to be recommended!).

On Tuesday, we went to The National Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street, where we enjoyed coffees and cakes in the cafe, then had a look round. I enjoyed the small exhibition of contemporary jewellery. [Please click on the picture to see a larger version.]

My favourite item was this neckpiece by Geoff Roberts made from steel, metal leaf, and paint c. 2000.

The main atrium of The Museum, with Buddha statue in the foreground. Lunch afterwards was in Mother India's Cafe, which is just a few minutes walk away. They serve tapas-style small dishes of curry. We had chana daal, vegetable samosas with chickpea curry, okra with tomatoes, potato, cauliflower and green bean curry, coriander pickle and rice. Very tasty!

On a different matter, I was pleased to find that my latest Pinterest board, For My Love, had made it to the front page of Folksy.com today!

Gifted Exhibition and Craft Fair, Kirkcudbright

Rob and I went to see the 'Gifted' exhibition in Kirkcudbright Town Hall this week. The show contains some of the paintings donated to Dumfries & Galloway council and had several artworks by one of my favourite artists from the area, Charles Oppenheimer. The image below shows his painting 'A Sun-Dappled Pool'. There were even a couple of Henri Matisse screenprints, a Joan Miro lithograph and many other artists' work. Well worth a visit! The exhibition is on until the 27th August 2012.

Downstairs was a craft show featuring the work of local artists and crafts people.

Handbound notebooks from Anthea Robson of Borgue Books.

Pottery from David Alexander of Brackland Pottery. Rob and I bought these two beautiful dishes, which we will use for serving olives, nuts etc or individual portions of hummus, salsa etc. They cost £8 each.

Paintings by Kie Stewart. 

Mosaics by Kate Anderson.

A great place to get an early start on your Christmas shopping! We also bought some cards by artist Eddie Saul (three for £5) which are always useful to have on hand for thank you notes and birthday cards.

PotFest in the Park 2012

Rob and I went to PotFest in the Park, held in the grounds of Hutton-in-the-Forest today.

The ceramics show hosts hundreds of makers from the UK, Europe and beyond. There is so much variety to see and we look forward to adding to our collection of usable pottery pieces.

We made a bee line for the tea room and had a cup of coffee before enjoying a walk around the walled garden, wildflower meadow and grounds before heading for the exhibition tents.

 

The competition for the exhibitors this year was "Journeys and Pilgrimages" and all of the pieces were laid out on the lawns for visitors to vote on. Rob chose the ship with the cat and owl as his #1 favourite; I went for the beautiful green, bud-like piece that was based on an ash leaf unfurling.

Here are some more pieces that caught my eye:-

We went on to the Upfront Gallery nearby, for lunch.

Rob had the vegetable curry, rice, and nan bread with mango chutney, a slice of banana and chocolate chip bread with a pot of tea; I ate cheese ploughman's with gluten free bread, a piece of 'sticky jack' (date, sultana, chocolate and rice crispy tray bake) and an apple juice. The ladies who served us were very nice and helpful and the food was great. I think the bill was just over £20. Full marks for the numerous vegetarian and gluten free options available! Highly recommended.

Back at home we admired the four dinner plates we bought: two each from Armin Skirde; and Charlotte and Siegerd Bohmer. Coincidentally, both sellers were from the same town (Hohr-Grenzhausen) in Germany, which we had no idea about until we got home and looked at their leaflets.