The Library Held Me Captive

I had an hour in which to be productive while I waited for my supervisor to finish teaching a course so she could meet with me and clarify all the confusions that I inevitably find myself dealing with in my studies. 

So off I went to the Scottish Studies Library where I would find a desk in a nice book-ensconced haven of quiet and studiousness. 

Wait... books?

Mmm... books....


The studying didn't happen.  Let's just say that I started to notice pretty spines of books and began pulling them out and taking quick peeks between the covers, delighted at each new discovery.  It became a book exploring adventure!


The studying could wait...

 Due to a semester and a half of Gaelic, I can actually read bits and pieces of the left hand side of the page.  This is the sort of book I'd love to have because I could work on translating with a bit of help if I need it.

 I am not ashamed to admit that I judge books by their covers sometimes.  That is, when I'm hunting through the shops for old books, I want them to be pretty.  Fortunately, back in 'the day' books were often given beautifully textured covers that make modern printed works look shabby and careless.


The Scottish Library is filled with such delights.  And a lot of them have pictures!

 Scottish Kitchen... Scottish Kitchen... Recipes from Scotland... Scots Cellar?.... Whisky Men... Secret Still... there's a trend here...

 Oooh, a picture book!

 A place I need to find...

 Good old John Knox got a sketch.






And I am hoping to visit Iona shown on the right.  This is a good picture book!

 Shabby, but beautiful.

 It's a good place to study.... if you ever get around to the studying bit.

 You can go through the library and to get to the connecting townhouse and go up to the offices of many of the professors.  If a class is taking place in the Celtic Library, you have to go down two flights of stairs, through here, and back up two flights if you want to get to any of the rooms on the other side.

 Grimm's Fairytales in German! It's so... authentic!

 I found a mysterious card inside... mysterious because I can't read German.

I think I found Goldilocks...

 Strange illustrations in some of these...

 Manx fairytales?  I didn't know they existed!

 Gazing lovingly up at the shelves and shelves of beautiful books.

 I pulled this one off because it has a dragon inscribed on the spine!

 But when I opened it, I realized that the inside was even more lovely...

 These drawings are fabulous!

 After wrestling with textual analysis and theoretical approaches and interlace structure applied to Irish and Welsh texts, it's nice to just look at beautiful pictures and read through a fairytale or two.

Eventually, I realized that I had to get going or I would be late for the meeting that I was passing time in the library waiting for.  Considering how much help I need with my writing, that would probably be a bad idea.

So I left the tempting shelves behind...




...for now.

Welsh Attacked My Bed...

I was doing homework today and noticed that my Welsh homework had more or less overtaken my entire bed.  It was a little scary, but that is the way of homework, I suppose, particularly when it is translating and one must have sheets of verb conjugations, prepositions, notes, and other sundry material all laid out in a careful, orderly fashion (no, really, there's a method to it).

On a happy note, I did make my first book purchase in Scotland!  I bought Pwyll in the original medieval Welsh!  Yay!

And now I am going to have to resist the book buying urge constantly.  I had forgotten how lovely it was...  And there are all those used bookstores just down the road from here... waiting for me....

But back to Welsh...

Obvious Fact of the Day: Scandinavians Know How to Make a Good Danish

Yet another bafflingly gorgeous day has hit Edinburgh and locals might go insane.  I am fast becoming spoiled myself.  The weather is even nicer than it was back in Virginia where humidity often made even the sunnier and warmer days feel somewhat stifling.  The fresh, chill breeze makes the sunshine feel just right.  I could deal with this longterm... but it seems to be drawing to a close if the forecast for next week is any indication. 

Everyone is making the most of the weather for the week, though.  I decided that if I had to do homework, that it ought to be done outside.  So, I packed my camera, Nap, and The Mabinogion and headed down to the park.  About a million other people had the same idea, but it's a big park, so there were plenty of trees to choose from for my homework spot.  Before I found a place, though, I went to a cafe wherein they sell Scandinavian baked goods, coffee, tea, and (to my joy) really, really good hot chocolate.  I splurged (it was that kind of day) and bought a raspberry vanilla danish.

 I had reservations about the danish.  It didn't look like much.  But after the first few bites, I realized that I had found a snack that would tempt me every time I passed by the cafe.  And then it hit me: Scandinavian theme... of course they would know how to make a really amazing danish.  It had  a thick vanilla cream filling with whole raspberries in the center.  Delicious!

And the hot chocolate was amazing, which is what I judge a cafe by overall.  Too many cafes focus on their coffee to the detriment of a quality cup of hot chocolate.  It is tragic.

I've read The Mabinogion before, but my translation by Sioned Davies proved to have a fascinating introduction and I was happily occupied with my reading for the next couple of hours.

I found a pretty awesome tree too.

It finally got a little too chilly to stay outside and my snack and hot chocolate were gone, so I packed up.  I am definitely going to miss days like this during the winter.

But the cafe will continue to supply me with their raspberry vanilla buns and fabulous hot chocolates on occasion, so I can't say I am completely devastated.