The North: A Trip to Scotland and Yorkshire

I had never been to Scotland and an opportunity came up to visit as well and stay with friends in Middlesbrough aka Cleveland and take in the sights. I enjoyed Glasgow a lot more than I thought I would, and the same goes for York (despite the crazy number of tourists). If I had taken this trip a few years ago I would have been miserable, due to the amount of hills and stairs that would not have been very compatible with being on a cane — let alone any other physical disabilities. So I am very glad the timing worked out. We spent a few weeks filled with train travel, art museums, medical museums, carb loading, tea, cats, nightclubs and meeting-up with friends. The history of Scottish rock was a common theme throughout the trip, and funny enough this issue of The Skinny had come out. Ah, what timing indeed.

Edinburgh is so gorgeous I will have to make another trip back to do everything I wanted. My husband Ben, and I, did the full tea service at The Balmoral Palm Court and even skipping lunch and dinner, it was an insane amount of food. It was all very royally done, and I think the Rose tea was my favorite. A side note: I enjoyed haggis and blood pudding in general, they don’t deserve the bad rap they get in the USA.

We met with Kevin of the legendary Avalanche Records at an art gallery; it appears live music venues in Scotland are experiencing the same problems as anywhere else. We went to an indie disco underneath Old Town. It was a very interesting study in anthropology.

I was very happy to finally make it to the Surgeons’ Hall Museums (we left early as my husband got a little too grossed out at things in jars) where I found many early examples and variants of my liposarcoma cancer and ways of infusing the femur with metal.

One thing I signed up to do was get over my strange fear of birds. Not too far from the city center is Dalhousie Castle, a hotel and spa, as well as the home of a large amount of birds of prey. Each one of them named for a David Bowie reference. Owls, hawks, falcons, and eagles. Want to get over your fear of birds? Hold a 9 pound eagle and flight a hawk for several runs! I’m addicted to falconry, now. There’s a few videos at the end of this post.

Our elevator broke in Edinburgh and we were in the attic on the 7th floor. It was like Crossfit that I didn’t sign up for, but with tartan.

We stayed directly across from the Sir Walter Scott monument….

And then, goth night anniversary in Newcastle with The Butlers! Mel Butler was one of the DJs. Thanks to them, I’ve been turned onto some newer goth bands that I really like. They drove us all around to old viking sites, cemeteries, seaside towns, and more for a great Bank Holiday weekend. It was a fun reunion after our adventures in Dublin a few years back.

They met for the first time in this exact spot in York, back in the 80s. Did I ever tell you kids about the 80s?

York Minster is perfect for photoshoots — especially if you are pretending you are in a band.

This is the seat for the Cleveland clergy in the York Minster Chapter House. Cleveland UK that is, not Cleveland, Ohio.

My first 99!

The Glasgow Necropolis!

Laz from the excellent Bubblegum Lemonade took a series of photos of Ben and I where we look like we should be in an indie/electronic duo. Laz gave us a walking tour of Glasgow indie music history, and we even ran into Mr. Love of Teenage Fanclub while out seeing Gospel Beach do a gig. The 25th anniversary of Oasis being signed to Creation Records after their gig at King Tut’s happened to fall on my last night; a documentary screening and cover band were a nice way to celebrate, and I’m always up for seeing venues in other cities since they might not always be around. I’m not the biggest Oasis fan, but what were the chances I’d be in the very spot where it happened on the night?

We visited the Glasgow School of Art because I was supposed to attend there for a semester as a sister school to CalArts. This photo was taken of Ben on May 30th and it blows my mind, that now weeks later, the entire place was wiped out in a fire.