Day 17 (July 31): Stirling Castle and Queen Anne’s Garden

Today (Friday) was an all-day trip to Stirling Castle, about a 1.5-hour drive from Dundee. We boarded a luxurious tourist bus at 9:15 and rode in comfort through miles of fields, towns, woods, bluffs, and streams. A really lovely countryside, rougher and less cultured than England. I thought the ride was just as enjoyable as touring the castle.

The castle is, of course, also enjoyable, but also a bit crowded with tourists this time of year. It stands on a high rocky promontory high above the city, with the Highlands in the background and an impressive monument to William Wallace standing tall on a hillside a mile in the distance. A photogenic site.

After wandering through a history of Scotland and particularly Stirling Castle, as well as the royal apartments, we ate lunch in the Unicorn Cafe (named for James V’s love of unicorns as a symbol of his reign).

Then we gathered in the magnificent garden known as Queen Anne’s Garden, where Linda Nemec Foster gave everyone a writing prompt, based on our close observation of the colors and flowers—of which there were many. It’s a gardener’s paradise.

I love cheerful pansy faces. 

The view from the outer walls also gives an idea of the glorious Scottish countryside.

It was cold and windy—and a bit rainy—as we wrote outside, so everyone was glad when the sun came out and we could walk around again and get warm. I found seating in the Royal Chapel and simply read a book on my phone for half an hour before we had to return to the bus. It was SO NICE to simply sit and focus on a story of another time and another life, to make no conversation for a time, and to be in solitude. As an introvert, I seek out any snatches of solitude I can find, to recharge and refresh.

Dinner was simple bread and cheese up in my room. And then to bed.

My poem from the garden on the lowly lobelia, Grandma Pasma’s favorite flower:

Lobelia 

Your mother’s mother

loved me.

Perhaps she still does

in some celestial glen

granted her to create and create and create.

Her hands will plant us there,

where our small faces

shine and shiver and shimmer

a brilliant hue no eye has seen.

She walks there,

your mother’s mother,

a gardener’s crown on her head

and we sing the color back to her,

a hymn of praise,

of truth and glory rolled up

in resplendent blue.