This is a view of the main gallery of the National Museum Of Scotland in Edinburgh. As you can see, the building is very light and airy.

In fact, it is so light and airy that it limits what can be put on display.

That’s because when it was designed in 1861, no one knew the deleterious effects of sunlight on exhibits. But today, of course, we do.

So when the museum was renovated in the 1990s, the designers were faced with a choice.

The choice was either to preserve the light and airy appearance of the building and limit what was on display – or to roof in the building to lower the light levels so that more exhibits could be displayed.

And the building won.

And rightly so, because the building has become a museum piece in its own right.

The Origin Of The Design Of The Building

The building is loosely modelled on Crystal Palace in London – the building that was the temporary venue for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

The 1851 ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’, to give it its full title, was designed to show the power of man to forge and form the world to his design.

And the United Kingdom as the greatest imperial power, was in the middle of a love affair with its conquest of the material world.

And this ‘new’ design principle shows in the architecture of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Francis Fowke

The architect of the National Museum of Scotland was Francis Fowke, who took his inspiration from the design of Crystal Palace in London.

Fowke was just 42 when he died, but he left his mark on an amazing number of buildings including the Royal Albert Hall, parts of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Natural History Museum – all in London – and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

Crystal Palace

As a side note, Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park in London to house the Great Exhibition. It was built with a glass roof and glass walls around a cast iron structure – hence ‘crystal’ palace.

It was never intended to remain permanently in Hyde Park and in 1854 it was moved to a new site in south London.

The exhibits from the Great Exhibition were then moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, which was built in 1857 specifically to house the exhibits from the Great Exhibition.

And so things continued until Crystal Palace burned to the ground in 1936.

The Architecture Of The National Museum Of Scotland

From the outside, the building has a stone-clad facade typical of Edinburgh architecture.

It is the interior with its tall, slim cast iron columns and a glass roof that reflected Victorian pride in the conquest of new materials.

Unfortunately, cast iron rots. So when the museum was renovated n the 1990s some of the columns were replaced with stainless steel. They are all painted, so you can’t tell which are which by looking.

In The National Museum Of Scotland

Among the exhibits on view we can see in the photograph a whale’s skull just to the left of the two people standing talking on the ground floor.

And just up from that is a section of the particle accelerator that was used at Edinburgh University in the 1950s and 60s to break atoms apart.

In the foreground is the glass lens from the Inchkeith lighthouse in the Firth Of Forth, in use until the 1980s.

And up on the first floor on the left is the all-important cafe.

There is a lot more to the museum off to the right of what you can see in the photograph and also behind the camera, as it were.

The light levels in the other rooms are low to protect the exhibits, and stepping from the main galleries into those rooms, they seem even darker until your vision adjusts itself.

Tamara and I have seen some terrific exhibitions here in the past two years. Viking ornaments, mammoths, and Egyptian mummies, to name just three. They have been wonderfully curated and are true educational experiences.

So if you are in planning to be in Edinburgh, find out what is on – you are not going to be disappointed with the exhibitions the museum puts on.

What’s In A Name

The museum can vie with the best for the number of names it has had throughout its history.

It started life as the The Industrial Museum Of Scotland. A decade later it was renamed as the The Museum Of Science and Art, only to be renamed as the Royal Scottish Museum in 1904.

With reorganisation in the 1980s it was amalgamated with the National Museum Of Antiquities (then housed in the National Portrait Gallery) and renamed the National Museums of Scotland (note the ‘s’).

Then in 1998 the new Museum Of Scotland opened next door to the National Museum.

This is the new building – purposely built to look like a defensive fortification. And to the left of the frame you can see part of the National Museum.

Then in 2011 the Museum of Scotland was knocked through to connect to the National Museum and the whole museum was renamed yet again – this time as The National Museum Of Scotland.

If you look up Scottish museums on the Web, you will see them collectively described as ‘National Museums Scotland’. Note the missing ‘of’ and the additional ‘s’ to differentiate the collection from the National Museum of Scotland…

Yes, it is all very confusing and quite homely and appealing.

Correction 23 March 2016

My thanks to Donnie McCathie of of National Museums Scotland who points out that contrary to what I said in this article before this correction – National Museums Scotland does not include the two buildings of the Modern Art Museum on the edge of the city.

They are in fact part of National Galleries Scotland.

That said, I will keep the image of the signage for the Modern Art Museums here in this article because the signs are so quixotic:

The ‘ottish onal of odern art one’ wording is not an error. This is the sign for The Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art One.

Modern Art Two is across the road, with its corresponding half of the complete sign.

It makes perfect sense for a modern art museum to break the rules, but I wonder what foreign visitors make of it?

This ecard is from our Mother’s Day range. It’s one of eleven ecards in our Mother’s Day ecards range.

A similar version is also available as a Mother’s Day Card (as in a card you can send by snail mail or hand to someone) on our sister site at Flying Twigs. Please note that the link will open in a new tab.

Mother’s Day Reminders Everywhere

If you’re in the UK, you will have been seeing reminders everywhere that it is Mother’s Day this Sunday, March 30th.

Every department store has been advertising gifts for Mother’s Day – and the color pink has been predominant.

It’s a day when dutiful sons and daughters send cards to their mothers. If they live close by, then traditionally they will visit their mothers with gifts of flowers and chocolate.

Get on a bus this Sunday and you are as likely as not to see one or two people with big bunches of flowers, and perhaps a wrapped parcel under their arms. And you can be sure that they are going to see their mothers.

The custom of Mother’s Day has got a strong hold on the consciousness and conscience of people.

After all, when is it not right to celebrate all that our mothers have done for us?

The True Origin Of Mothering Sunday

Stepping back one or two generations ago, you were as likely to hear an older name for Mother’s Day – which is Mothering Sunday.

Whichever name you heard, you would know it was a traditional holiday… a day for appreciating mothers.

So it may come as a surprise to learn that the ‘mother’ in question was originally the mother church, the home church, the church in one’s town or village.

And the tradition came about because it was young people who came home to their mother church on Mothering Sunday… young people who worked away from home as domestic servants.

Years Of Hardship, Days Of Freedom

For hundreds of years in England it was the tradition that young people in domestic service were allowed home on the fourth church day (Sunday) of Lent.

Why would domestic servants be allowed home on this day?

The answer comes from what Lent is all about.

The word Lent comes from ‘laetare’ meaning joyful. And in the Christian calendar Lent is a forty-day period of introspection, repentance, self-denial, and of acts of kindness.

So it was perhaps only natural that the masters and mistresses of grand houses and estates would feel obliged to give their domestic servants the day off to attend church in their home village.

It must have made the masters and mistresses feel good to grant the day off to their servants, and the servants must have been very grateful (note the ironic tone).

The End Of The First World War

The First World War scythed through the younger generation – domestic servants and young masters alike. The grand houses and estates did not survive the war.

Some of the most prestigious estates hung on, but over the next decades domestic service shrivelled away.

But Mother’s Day sailed through the carnage and the trauma – and the religious holiday and the joy of seeing parents became intertwined in Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day.

Why Mother’s Day Isn’t On The Same Date Every Year

One vestige of the religious connection that continues in the UK is that Mother’s Day is not on the same day each year.

Perhaps you remember that Mother’s Day was earlier in the year last year? And you’d be correct.

Last year in the UK, Mother’s Day was on the 10th of March.

This year is falls on the 30th of March.

In 2015 it will be on the 15th of March.

The reason it ‘moves’ from year to year is that it is on the same day as Mothering Sunday… and the year in question is the religious liturgical year.

Our year is based on the sun’s cycle but in the liturgical year, the date of Easter is calculated from the moon’s cycle as well as the sun’s cycle.

And because Lent is connected to Easter, so Mothering Sunday moves from year to year.

What Mothers Know

Does your mother know the origin of Mothering Sunday, and why the date moves from year to year?

Far Away From Home?

Maybe you’re far away from home and can’t get to see your mother to say Happy Mother’s Day personally? Well, we have just the solution.

We have a collection of eleven Mother’s Day ecards. Of course, with flowers being ‘the thing to send’ on Mother’s Day, we also have 42 flower ecards – all of which are a delight.

So if you want to send a high-class ecard to your mother, hop over and check out our latest Mother’s Day Ecards

When will Spring come?
When will the nights pull back and the days start to get longer?
When will we see the sun?
When will the grey, grey days go away?
When will the wind stop?
When will we be able to walk out without layers of clothing, without thinking of the struggle to get to the post office, to the shops, to the bus?

We’ve had almost no snow. You can see it on the hills – and you can always see the hills from almost anywhere in Edinburgh, even from the city centre.

But there has been no snow. Just a flurry or two scattered through the winter months. But nothing that has settled.

Snow is an ambivalent creature. It’s all white and welcoming, but then it turns to slush. As pure as the driven slush, as the actress Tallulah Bankhead said of herself.

Of course, in some places (I am thinking of the time I spent in Finland) the air is so dry that the snow settles and remains crisp and white for months.

And apparently the snow was knee deep in Edinburgh for months, just four years ago.

But not this year. So it has been a bit of a slog to reach these lighter evenings and some sunny days. But now the crocuses and the snowdrops are out and the sun is shining.

It is so easy to see how epic poetry and drama arose in human consciousness – the struggle through the dark and the bursting into the light – it’s all there with the seasons. It’s almost all there with each day in the changeable Edinburgh weather…

Crocuses

But now it is here.
Early signs of Spring are here.
It’s a gorgeous day and the sun is here.
Longer days are here.
Crocuses are here:

A Reminder Of Snow

So what is snow like? The scene fades from the memory so quickly I can hardly recall what it looks like or feels like. I have to dig into it to remember it.

The crunch of boots and the sudden ‘give’ as the crystalline structure loses its fight against my weight and I drop, just a fraction, into the snow.

The tiny highlights as the sun (the sun??) glints off the snow.

The sheer brightness as I look up and out and over the blanket of snow. (Who first described thick snow as a ‘blanket’, I wonder?)

The snow in this photo here isn’t Edinburgh snow.

It is a scene from high on the Yorkshire moors a few winters ago. It’s one of the ecard photos from the Landscape category at Quillcards.