Thursday, 26 October 2023

Culloden Battlefield

James headed to Ullapool with the cats on Tuesday but I stayed behind in Cambuslang because I had a few things on. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I took Vinnie for a walk in the morning, he’s such a lovely boy; on Wednesday Suzy and Harris came too. 

On Wednesday afternoon I went to our course on Northern Renaissance Art, which I’m still enjoying very much. Our enthusiastic lecturer goes at a heck of a pace, and I have not done the reading that I have intended in between lectures in order to go into more detail about the paintings, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a pure joy to learn about the art and how it is linked to society and history. I have always wanted to understand the paintings in art galleries better, and I’m looking forward to visiting some of the Art Galleries that house them. They are scattered all over Europe but there are quite a lot in the National Gallery in London, (of which I am currently a member) and I’d love to visit St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent to see Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece. In the evening I went to my EK book club. What a nice bunch of girls and what a laugh we had!

Heather and Ewan kindly gave me a lift to Inverness this morning where we met James at Culloden Battlefield, the venue suggested by Heather. The visitor centre has a very good café and an interesting exhibition about the battle, and we even went on a battlefield tour which was useful to understand where the troops had marched from and had clashed together. I have done a tour before, with my Mum and the boys, in about 2003, when the guide was dressed as a highland soldier complete with sword and shield. Ally got to hold the shield and was thrilled. This time the guide was informative but not quite so entertaining. 

I transferred into James’ car for the last part of the journey and when we were settled in at the cottage we had James’ sweet potato and peanut curry; it was delicious. 

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