Diary of an Edinburgher

By LadyMarchmont

Museum Day (No 4)

Museum Day, and as it was so sunny (but I didn’t realise how cold it was!) I walked across The Meadows. I met a man with a lovely wee Schnauzer. She looked like a puppy, but she was 10 years old, soft as anything, and her name was Chaos. Maybe she was chaos when she was a pup, but she’s very sensible now.

The class had wander round the European Styles gallery today. We saw half of Napoleon’s tea set. The other half is in the Louvre.

The guide was telling us (reading her notes) about some duke or other, saying that his castle was 'fortified... er... forfeited.' I liked the mistake, and I imagined the duke making the same mistake when reading the letter from the king, 'Your castle will be fortified...' And he thinks, 'Brilliant!'

She explained to us how to cast in bronze. This involved her doing a sketch of a vase then drawing lots of complicated tubes (wax runners and risers) all over the place, with a cup at the top. As she held up the finished sketch, which looked like a child had done something then scribbled over it, she asked if we all understood. We all nodded. Stunned.

We also had a poke around Lady Ivy Wu’s gallery - Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese artefacts, and we had a description of how a Samurai gets dressed, starting with his ‘nappy’.

I had a wander beforehand, and went in to take a photo of the big lump of gold in the shape of the UK. But I was more interested in the young chap on the other side of the display who was reading all the texts carefully.

I don’t think he spotted me...

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