Wednesday, June 30, 2004 (Mary King’s Close)

What do you think, what happened in the morning … yes, it was raining again. A little bit early this morning – the last time I wouldn't took the 31 bus, so I walked from the New Town to school – I met the students from Spain. First I wanted to write in my diary, but it was too wet and since the water had dripped from my raincoat onto the pages.

In the beginning of the lessons with Andrew, we discussed a lot. In groups, we practised talking about a special interest and learned some new words in sport. Then we used active listening in conversation to copy the intonation in a text. On entering we read about the revised and extend uses of the present perfect simple and continuous. In the end we went to the computer room and tried some crosswords, software for pronunciation and phrasal verbs. A group of students had lessons there in the common room, so that we had to use the headset. Software for Pronunciation and Others

But now it was break time and the weather a little bit better and so we got take away coffee. This week we didn't have a lot of homework; it was a new but good feeling. ;-)
With Kirsty we tried to use the words; onomatopoeia, unconsciousness, jurisprudence, feasible, hyacinth and raucous. But how do you pronounce thess words: (k)nock, lim(b), de(b)t, Lei(ce)ster, worcestershire (woostershire), loch (lox) and Kirsty’s favourite word, auchtermuchty – but I forget what it means.

Afterwards we had to prick up our ears to hear the difference between word pairs like; ran and run, man and men, worse and worth, hard and heart, self and shelf, rice and prize, her and hair, full and fool, butter and better, short and shot, etc. Finally, we heard about “word stress” in the use with the words; civil, civility, civilize and civilization. I hope I can explain it right when I say; a word with one or more syllables for example “teacher”, has two syllables “tea” and “cher”. One syllable inside a word has the main stress; inside the word “teacher” it is the first one “TEAcher” and in the word “about” is it the second one, as “aBOUT”. To complicate the pronunciation we should also known something about “weak vowels”, “sentence stress” and “intonation”.

I also read a text about words which have the same spelling, but have a different pronunciation and meaning; for example “tear” for “tîr, a drop of the clear salty liquid that is secreted by the lachrymal gland of the eye to lubricate the surface between the eyeball and eyelid and to wash away irritants” and “târ, to pull apart or into pieces by force”. That brings me to the point of long life learning, especially for a language … ;-)

After having done that, I went to write emails to the computer room. But there I was more talking with the other students and the time was going by quickly again. Afterwards, I decided to go into town and visit The People’s Story. On the way there, I saw a lot of well dressed people who were walking in the direction of the Palace of Hollyroodhouse, there was also chaos on the street and a helicopter in the air – is today the garden party for her Majesty the Queen?

One of the surviving symbols of Canongate’s former independence is Canongate Tolbooth. Built in 1591, it served successively as a collection point for tolls (taxes), a council house, a courtroom and a jail. With its picturesque turrets and projecting clock, it’s a splendid example of 16th century architecture. It now houses a fascinating museum, The People’s Story, recording the life, work and pastimes of ordinary Edinburgh folk from the 18th century to the present day. There is a lot of information and I don’t understand it all. It’s loud and there is not enough room, then a group of younger Hawthorn students are visiting the museum too. So I would have liked to have seen the videos but acoustically I didn’t understand it all, because there was a constand coming and going of the students.

Across the street from the Tolbooth is Huntly House. Built in 1570, it is a good example of the luxurious accommodation that aristocrats built for themselves along Canongate. It now houses the Museum of Edinburgh. The exhibits cover the history of the city from prehistory to the present. Exhibits of national importance include an original copy of the National Covenant of 1638, but the big crowd-pleaser is the dog collar and feeding bowl that belonged to Greyfriars Bobby, the city’s most famous canine citizen.

Downhill on the left is the attractive curved gable of Canongate Kirk, built in 1688. In 1745 Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) used it to hold prisoners taken at the Battle of Prestonpans. The kirkyard contains the graves of several famous people including the economist Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations), Agnes MacLehose (the “Clarinda” of Robert Burns live poems) and the 18th century poem Robert Fergusson.



North Bridge, Scotsmen, Carlton Highland

During my visit in Edinburgh I wanted to see the famous Mary King’s Close. So I arrived at the cash register and bought a ticket for a tour – but it just started 40 minutes later so I had enough time for a coffee in Starbucks and something for “lunch”, there I met some technical students from Italy.

The Mary King’s Close lies beneath the Royal Mile and is a warren of streets where people lived, worked and died. A guide introduced us to Alexander Cant, whose house was the grandest in 16th century Edinburgh, to a family of plague victims and to Andrew Chesney, 19th century saw maker and, of course, to the spectres and spirits. Mary was the widow of an Edinburgh merchant burgess, Alexander Nimmo. She and her four children moved into a house at the top of the close soon after her husband’s death. The street was already known as King’s Close when Mary moved in. Low or laigh houses, often below street level, teemed with Edinburgh’s poor. These were dark, smelly, unhealthy places where large families shared single rooms with no sanitation; every kind of waste was simply dumped in the street.

Some of the inhabitants of these old streets were struck down during the last visitation of the plague to Edinburgh in 1645, perhaps as many as half of the city’s population died. When the Royal Exchange (now the city Chambers) was constructed between 1753 and 1761, it was built over the lower levels of Mary King’s Close, which were left, intact and sealed off, beneath the building. Interest in the close revived in the 20th century when Edinburgh’s city council began to allow occasional tours to enter. www.realmarykingsclose.com



Balmoral Hotel, Princes Mall

Now I had a lot to think of and was glad to see the sun, a lot of friendly and laughing people, especially children. Then, there was also a ghost story from “Sarah”, a little girl whose sad tale has prompted many people to leave gifts of dolls in a corner of one of the rooms. So I tried to relish the Town and the living people.

So at home I listened to the information from the other house members and enjoyed another delicious dinner with dessert. The indispensable phone with my husband followed, writing in my diary and labeling the photos. In my room there are also some books from Wendy and other students who have stayed here before and so I began with the book “About a Boy” which was also adapted for the screen.

It’s embarrassing but I forget to write down a stroll I had with Bill and JoeJoe. We drove with the car to a very neat and green place close to the airport. But I also forgot to remember the place's name – could it be by Lauriston Castle? It was quiet and I thought that I wasn’t in a town. But over us, the airplanes approached for landing.