The weather had been getting steadily warmer to the point where the coat I brought with me is now too heavy, but I still need some sort of light jacket when I go out. Which I don’t have. I went to several shops trying to find something, with no success. I did, however, notice that all of the tags on clothes said “KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE” in bright red letters. Even the towel I bought says this now that I know to look. None of my clothes from the states have this. Why did manufacturers feel the need to say this? Has this been an issue? Were people complaining because the outfit they bought in Marks & Spencer turned out NOT to be fire retardant, imagine that? If I was in the U.S. with our sue-happy culture, I could understand the warning, but Europe seems to assume a certain level of intelligence from its costumers.
Greyfriars Kirk was finally open for visits, so I took the opportunity to go in there.
There’s a Latin phrase written across the tops of the different segments. I asked what it meant, got my answer, and promptly forgot what I had just been told. Something about music. Which makes sense. If it was something about cooking that would be a little weird.
There was a small monument to Bobby near the entrance to the churchyard. Some people had left flowers but the vast majority seemed to have left sticks. Which I’m sure a terrier would appreciate more anyway.
Other than that, and finishing my papers for creative writing, my time was spent going to specific locations just to get pictures of things.
My dad had commented when he was here on the lack of things to do with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the city, especially given the amount of things commemorating Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. My response was “Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh?” Not only was he born and educated here, but the man who inspired Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell, was Scottish as well. This statue and one restaurant near by is the only acknowledgement Edinburgh makes of this. Given how important tourism is to Scotland, this does not seem like a smart move.
There are planter boxes all along Rose Street that have poems along their sides. I don’t think I need to explain why I took pictures of that.
Humm. I’m interested as well in the “keep away from fire” labels. Makes me wonder if more clothes in the U.S. should be labeled this way. Our clothes have a great deal of polyester, which is pretty flammable. Michele