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shewhomustSo we sped north on the train through green fields and pearly grey skies, with our books and our coffee and our wifi. Splashes of yellow were fields of rape just coming into bloom - except for two blocks of acid yellow which weren't rape at all, but daffodils. For a while before we reached Aberdeen we were travelling through grey mist, but by the time we reached the grey city it had lifted to cloud.
We left our big suitcase at the Northlink terminal, and set off to explore the city. We ate our sandwiches down by the Dee, where we watched the crews of two orange boats practicing rescuing one another. Then we made our way into town through streets where the only businesses were Chinese restaurants.
Aberdeen is grey, and tries to look austere, but keeps breaking out in decorative flourishes; the architecture has the pseudo-medieval flamboyance of the Flemish wool towns, but in monochrome. It's large scale, but as the major streets are filled with anytown chain stores, Aberdeen is trying to promote the smaller, more characterful wynds - not entirely convincingly.
We had coffee in a busy Starbucks, where we were entertained by a small girl in pale blond bunches and icecream pink clothes, hiding and peeping out from behind us very seriously, but beaming with pleasure at being noticed.
And there was just time before closing for a visit to Provost Skene's House: duck under a twentieth century glass and concrete block and you find the oldest house in Aberdeen, with a series of rooms furnished in different periods, a fabulous seventeenth century painted ceiling and a small costume gallery (best dress, linen, arty, 1930s).
On the last zebra crossing before the Northlink terminal, we heard a voice behind us: "It's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and shewhomust!" It was M. and J., fellow participants in the reat Fair Isle expedition - so now the party had really begun.
We left our big suitcase at the Northlink terminal, and set off to explore the city. We ate our sandwiches down by the Dee, where we watched the crews of two orange boats practicing rescuing one another. Then we made our way into town through streets where the only businesses were Chinese restaurants.
Aberdeen is grey, and tries to look austere, but keeps breaking out in decorative flourishes; the architecture has the pseudo-medieval flamboyance of the Flemish wool towns, but in monochrome. It's large scale, but as the major streets are filled with anytown chain stores, Aberdeen is trying to promote the smaller, more characterful wynds - not entirely convincingly.
We had coffee in a busy Starbucks, where we were entertained by a small girl in pale blond bunches and icecream pink clothes, hiding and peeping out from behind us very seriously, but beaming with pleasure at being noticed.
And there was just time before closing for a visit to Provost Skene's House: duck under a twentieth century glass and concrete block and you find the oldest house in Aberdeen, with a series of rooms furnished in different periods, a fabulous seventeenth century painted ceiling and a small costume gallery (best dress, linen, arty, 1930s).
On the last zebra crossing before the Northlink terminal, we heard a voice behind us: "It's
durham_rambler and shewhomust!" It was M. and J., fellow participants in the reat Fair Isle expedition - so now the party had really begun.
