above the pool of bobbins

First on the list for popping to today (whilst it was free to get into as part of Doors Open Days) were the former Infirmary Street Baths on Infirmary Street, former site-street of the original Royal Infirmary to which the baths were apparently appended in a misguided attempt to reduce the spread of cholera amongst the city's unwashed. An interesting-looking but derelict building until a few years ago when it was consumed by reconstruction activity which I was afraid would result in the chimney accidentally being knocked down or the building's pleasantly old appearance being knackered in some form of unpleasant modern way. Worst of all was the temporary blockage of the steps between Infirmary and Drummond streets and the construction's constriction by scaffold when the passage was re-opened, creating a shadowy area in which jakeys began to congregate. Eventually the building emerged without too much having been done to the exterior and became the new home of the Dovecot tapestry studios including a few gallerybits as well as the space formerly containing the swimming pool which now houses several looms of various size, a few smaller workshops and shelvesful of skeins and bobbins of many colours. There was no actual tufting or weaving going on at the time but there was plenty to see and also plenty to hear in the form of lots of yabbering semiposh codgers explaining what they were looking at to each other in the exhibitions.

Later on we went on a tour of the light and airy DanceBase then the murky underparts of the Traverse theatre, perhaps not as fascinatingly vast behind-the-scenes as one of the older theatres might have been but reasonably interesting despite the disinterested manner of the artistic director by whom our tour was conducted. A shame the tour did not include a ride in the massive lift at the back of the workshop but it's good to know such things exist where theatres' set doors are not at ground level. I just about managed to keep my sense of direction intact throughout though knowing which direction is which in relation to things in the outside world is probably of little use as even in the case of a powercut and a fire it doesn't matter whereabouts on the outside one ends up as long as it's outside.