Visiting Arthur
(Me and Emma at Arthur’s seat: Edinburgh, Scotland)
It’s embarrassing that one of my current flatmates went up Arthur’s seat before me, despite her having been in the country less than two months, and me having lived in Scotland eight years. I had enough of a head start, but she beat me. However, a couple of weeks ago my friend, Emma was visiting and insisted we made the trek up to the Edinburgh summit before she had to catch a train home. It isn;t a particularly difficult ascent, but the crags were blustery that day, as you can see from the wisps of my hair blowing everywhere and you might just detect a movement of cloud. Below us lies Edinburgh and its castle on the mound – which from all the way up there looks rather insignificant indeed.
Arthur’s seat is essentially a wide plateau topped hill in the middle of Edinburgh – it is a short walk from the city centre and then a forty five minute climb to the views. It’s a bizarre sensation; standing above a real city, perched on a hilltop littered with dog walkers, runners, beer wielding teens, and even the odd kestrel. We watched a fine hunting display from above – I spotted the bird of prey by chance as we began the descent back towards civilisation and we watched it hover and swoop for several minutes.
At the very top there were seemingly hundreds of people milling about and making the most of the dry afternoon. We took a host of heavily posed photographs – a few in particular boosting my extensive portfolio of inane personal expressions. For this shoot I set my camera to take no less than ten photographs of the pair of us on a timer, each a second or so apart. This set is the most effective as a wee animation – something I should definitely incorporate into my illustration work, rather than wasting precious time making idiotic and sub-par photographic gifs like this one. I am aware that it is a little wobbly. It was late and I didn’t think it through quite well enough!
– Today Rosie is painting, visiting her Gran and probably fielding yet more Project B mishaps in Glasgow, Scotland –
