Scottish Tour 1st full day

This morning we were to have our suitcases outside our room door by 7:45......breakfast was from 7-9. So far the food  has been very good, the usual for a full breakfast with some Scottish add ons. Black pudding, haggis, and scones. While I generally like haggis and black pud......the haggis was a bit too mealy.
A little bit of a Glasgow city tour started the day, the streets were quiet. Since it was Sunday people were either in church or still in bed!  There were a few who were obviously ready for the game of the day , Rangers  vs  Celtics. I did hear later on that Celtics won.
Our first stop was in Georges Square. The Center of the square is home to a tall column with a statue of King George III . The interesting fact is that he was headless until about 60 years ago, the Scots had beheaded him as they were offended that he had won “the” battle  ....he got a new head, the head of Sir Walter Scott!  On one side of the square is a massive building that is now the Lord of Glasgow and council chambers. The Scottish flag flies above along with a minutur3 of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the USA.  We were also made aware of the reason behind the design of the flag. The blue is for the sky and the white cross is askew because St Andrew who who died nailed to a cross, said he was not worthy of being on the same cross as Jesus.

The things you learn on a tour!
Did you know A university education is still free in Scotland? No matter if you are doing a relatively short arts degree or a long dentistry one (8yrs) !  Prince William first wanted to attend Glasgow University but because of the difficulty of security in Scotland’s largest city it was thought he would be better off in St Andrews. ......and female registrations soared.
The population of Scotland is about 5 million, mostly in cities, all the sheep are in the highlands, I don’t know their  number! Speaking of sheep.....farmers are a bit concerned......due to the massive deer population there are plans to re-introduce 200 wolves to reduce the numbers of deer.  They are
closely monitoring the program in Yellowstone. Currently the hunting season for deer is 8 months long, but not sufficiently working.
We are leaving the city but our schedule has changed due to a marathon  being run through several of the towns we were to visit..... Dunblane, Stirling , and Doune  Castle (yes this is one of the Outlander locations) . Our back up plan was to stop in Falkirk and visit the Kelpies. We drove on roads that took us by the fells (hills no more than 1500 ft) and past Grangemouth where my dad worked for a time. The 2 Kelpies are 30 meters high and each weigh 300 tons, made of Scottish steel, the worlds largest equine sculptures. They honour the Clydesdale horses that were used extensively in earlier days in every type of works.
From Falkirk we drove on to the beautiful village on the bank of the Forth river, The Royal Burgh of Culross. This is also where much of Outlander was filmed. Claire’s herb garden is here, it’s wuite large, our guide said it was Jamie’s favourite place to go. She also told us the actor who plays Jamie was currently running in todays marathon! The town folk quite enjoyed and benefitted from the filming, their houses were all painted a different colour for the show, and whitewashed back wh3n they were done. The main palace in the village which we toured was the home of Sir Walter Scott.
Inside we were told the history behind several expressions used today. There was a large table with legs and a loose board on top...hence the name board table, when a meal was finished the “board” was simply turned over so the dogs under the table could lick it clean! The “boss” sat at the head of the table “chair” man. After the ladies had retired from the table to the “with drawingroom” the men would pass the “piss” pot around and the chairman’s “right hand man” sitting on his right would  dump the piss pot down the dry urnial......which was later collected for tanning leather and used in the making of turning sea water into salt! And if you didn’t have a piss pot......you didn’t have a pot to pass in!  And of course most of these old buildings have a ghost or two! The guide relayed a story from 2 weeks ago.....there is an area within the Scott palace where odd things have happened. A young girl of about 5 was being told by her mother to come and asked what she was doing, the girl replied there was a man waving at her.  When the guide asked her what the man looked like she described him in some detail. Upstairs in the house was a portrait of “the man” exactly as she described him.....when she saw the portrait she said, Mummy that’s the man who was waving to me. We heard stories about the many witches who were burned at the stake, and the boy referred to in Outlander who had his ear nailed to the post. The post is still standing in Culross market square.
We had a mixture of weather in Culross, rain and brilliant sun. We then drove on to Edinburgh where we will be for the next three nights.

We had two hours to relax before our Scottish show night where we had a 3course meal served with wine. We were entertained by the ceremony of the haggis, then bagpipes, fiddle, accordion, a young girl who sung some melancholy pieces with a background of misty Scottish hills. 4 young girls in kilts doing the highland fling and sword dance, plus a little country dancing. This was the dancing my parents and their Scottish friends did regularly when I  was growing up in Kitimat. We were also serenaded by some very familiar Scottish songs by Andy Stewart and others, finishing off with Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond and finally Auld slang Syne.
Oh my it was special! Grait! (Spelling intentional.......pronounce it how it looks)