The sun was shining and the sky was blue over Edinburgh today as I undertook to show Nancy our capital city.Having had a whole week of training in how to operate a video camera, Nancy herself was not slow to gather some footage of her own. It may take her some time to edit the diverse clips she must have captured including the long slow pans across the Edinburgh skyline from the esplanade of the Castle and the bumpy action shots from inside the car as we drove along some of Edinburgh's cobbled streets.
What impressed Nancy most was the age of so many of the buildings, especially the churches. Of course, one thing Scotland has plenty of is its past... though sometimes I'm not so sure about its future! Especially when it comes to the church.
One place we visited was St. Giles Cathedral in the Royal Mile.
(As the Church's own website says: "There is record of a parish church in Edinburgh by the year 854, served by a vicar from a monastic house, probably in England. It is possible that the first church, a modest affair, was in use for several centuries before it was formally dedicated by the bishop of St Andrews on 6 October 1243. The parish church of Edinburgh was subsequently reconsecrated and named in honour of the patron saint of the town, St Giles, whose feast day is celebrated on 1 September.")
There is within the cathedral a pleasing balance between the old and the new. While we were there the organist was giving an organ recital, which just added to the atmosphere - more "music coming from the chapel" but what caught my eye was the way in which the light, filtering through the stained glass, fell on the backs of some of the chairs. I could not resist taking a photograph of it. Pity the photograph didn't manage to capture the organ playing too. But, then, maybe Nancy will have it on video?
