23 September 2014

I schlepped the laundry up the hill to the launderette. For L11 they will wash, dry, and fold. Sure beats sitting around waiting for it. We have better things to do.

Our first mission was to see the former royal yacht Britannia. The hop-on-hop-off tour tickets we bought yesterday will get us out there and back if we go in the morning and come back before 2:45. With luck, we can also get to the National Museum of Scotland before the ticket runs out.

I had heard about Britannia, but I had no idea what to expect. She is a lot bigger than I thought – over 400’ long. She logged over 1million miles between her launching in 1953 and her decommissioning a few years ago. A royal yacht is not like other yachts. There are only 4 staterooms for the royals. The queen and Phillip each have a bedroom and a study. There is a drawing room and anteroom, which when combined can fit 250 people. The formal dining room seats 56. She still has her original engines and speaking tubes used to communicate between the bridge and the engine room.

Oh, and there is a garage for the Rolls – which got converted to a locker after they decided it was too much trouble to get on and off the boat.

The bridge - blue tubes are the speaking tubes

12-meter yacht Bloodhound from the top deck of Britannia

The Rolls in the garage

Queen's bedroom. Bed made to fit the sheets used by Queen Victoria on an earlier royal yacht.

Officer's mess. Stuffed wombat on the fan - some sort of game amongst the officers 

State diningroom

Drawing room - baby grand out of frame to the left. Bolted to the deck. 

Crew quarters. 

A large part of the space is allocated to the crew and staff. There is a surgery and a huge laundry. The crew may change uniforms 6 times a day and the admiral in charge has 26 uniforms on board. Each of the ranks (officers, petty officers, senior and junior ranks) has their own mess, including a bar. The marines have their own space. There is a band aboard that has to figure out when to practice to create the least disturbance. And they have to know the national anthem of whatever country the ship is visiting. The teak decks are 2” think and have to e scrubbed, also without disrupting the royals. However, the crew does not wear their caps, thereby making them technically out of uniform so the family does not have to return their salutes. Talk about protocol. I will say that with all the fun the family seems to have enjoyed on the ship, it seems too bad that they felt they had to give it up.

The Britannia is docked next to the first US-like shopping mall we have seen. Multi-story with restaurants, shops, etc. We grabbed lunch, bought Michael a new belt and headed back to Edinburgh to see the museum. I had hoped to tour a Georgian house, but it’s clear that we can’t do both, so we opt for the museum.

It’s got an odd, multi-level layout.  We wanted to start with the history of Scotland and were told we had to go up one level, cross over and go back down a level. OK. Michael was interested in the technology, but I started with the archaeological materials. We agreed to meet in an hour. I was impressed with the examples of carved wooden panels from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, and earlier.

One of the Beaton panels

Shetland lace shawl from the 1800s

Printing blocks

Printed fabric

Jacquard loom

Beatling? machine for pounding linen fabric to finish it. (I know that is not the right word) 

One of the odd items in the museum is Dolly the cloned sheep – stuffed and in a glass case. The steam engines, one of Jackie Stewart’s racecars and the history of textiles in Scotland were more conventional exhibits. You really need the map, and even then I had to ask someone how to find the café where we agreed to meet.

We walked back to the main road, picked up the laundry and took a bus back to the B&B. The Thai restaurant was open tonight and we had a great meal with fishcakes, a Penang curry and a stir-fry with prawns and peppers and Thai basil.

Back to England tomorrow.