We left early in the morning, and it was just about noon by the time we got to Dumfries. All we had in the way of luggage was food and some clean clothes in a backpack, so we didn't bother stopping by the hotel; we headed straight for Dumfries museum. Founded in 1836, it was converted from an old windmill. The windmill, as a windmill, had never been profitable, because right next to it there was a dam on the river and a big watermill. It was going to be demolished, but instead the town voted to preserve it and convert it into an observatory. They installed a telescope and camera obscura, and performed some renovations. Then lots of locals started donating items to the observatory, and it became first an informal and then an official museum.
We were the only ones there that Friday afternoon, so we got a private tour of the camera obscura. The guide took us up a long spiral staircase to a tiny round room at the top of the old mill. The main features were white, concave table and several ropes hanging down like bellropes from a small aperture overhead. The guide found Maeve a small stool and turned out the lights.
By pulling one of the ropes, the guide moved the mirror to project the light through a 1.5 magnification lens. She told us that this lens was, in fact, the very 19th century lens originally installed. As the mirror overhead slowly rotated, an image projected on the white surface of the table with surprising clarity. It showed the museum gate, and really, the image was better than anything you get on Google Maps. One kept wanting to hit the 'zoom' button.
We then got a virtual tour of the town, as the guide used the ropes to turn the periscope-like viewer and show us all the important features. She also described what they would have looked like when the camera obscura was first built. They included a house where Robert Burns lived, an old church, a hospital, and the 'new' and 'old' bridges -- the 'new' bridge being about 100 years old, and the 'old' bridge having served as a pedestrian bridge for the same period of time.
Finally the guide let us play some tricks with the camera obscura. She put an M-shaped piece of white cardboard on the table, and everything projected onto it nicely, with results much like one of those trick mirrors. She put the table out of focus by lowering it (there was a counterweight arrangement so the table could raise and lower to focus on nearer or further objects), and gave Maeve a flyswatter-like object, with white cardboard replacing the swatter. By raising or lowering this like a magnifying glass, you could get a focused image on it above the table. These all worked because the image would project on anything of light color--the table, cardboard, or, as I noticed, my gray pants.
Maeve was thrilled, also, when our guide put the table out of focus again and let her focus it. She was shy at first, then reached out and focused it quite capably. The guide was very impressed, told Maeve how well-behaved she had been, and added, "Your mom and dad must be very proud of you." (Pretty sure she meant ME. Sigh ... )
Once the camera obscura demonstration was over, we wandered through the rest of the museum. Most of it was fairly dull town history information, although Maeve was thrilled by a giant papier-mache dragon which hung in the main hall for unclear reasons. The basement, labeled 'Sacred Stones,' was a collection of artifacts ranging from Gaelic to Roman. My favorite was this, apparently the only existing evidence for the goddess Harimella.
After the museum, we settled down near the town fountain for a nice lunch. Built to commemorate the bringing of water to Dumfries, the fountain is gaudy in a wonderfully seven-year-old-pleasing way.
We also went by the Dumfries used bookstore; Maeve got some more Secret Seven books. Back to the fountain for more reading; I'm reading the Game of Kings series by Dorothy Dunnett.
We got pizza for dinner and stayed overnight at a hotel. They gave us a 'family room,' with a full-sized bed for Daddy, a couch-bed for me and a cot for Maeve. We played Hearts and Sergeant Major until bedtime. (I won Sergeant Major, but I keep forgetting about the ten of diamonds in Hearts. Plus Maeve refuses to sort her hand, so she thinks she's out of a suit one trick and then plays it on the next trick.)
In the morning, we took a bus to Caerlaverock Castle. First stop was the full-sized replica of Warwolf, the giant trebuchet which destroyed Caerlaverock.
You can just see Maeve up against the trebuchet for scale. Partially cut off on the right are the giant winches used for winding up Warwolf.
Next we went down to the (very kid-friendly) information center, where Maeve had lots of fun reading about the battle, creating her own coat of arms with stencils, and dressing up as a lady of the period.
Finally we headed over the moat to the castle itself. Complete with gatehouse, towers, moat, and (for the time) very luxurious living apartments, Caerlaverock castle is in a fair state of preservation; a number of decorative plaques above windows are still intact.
Then we wandered over to the original castle site and had lunch. Maeve was delighted to find a thistle in bloom.
Finally, with an hour or so left before the bus, we went over to the playground. Below see photograph of me making a fool of myself on a sort of miniature 'ropes course' they had; I was trying to beat Maeve's time.
Then back home on the long bus to the train station. More cards on the train, and then the big hill home. Brigid, characteristically, sulked and refused to talk to us until Daddy offered to play cards with her. Maeve and I were just glad to get home.
--Sophia
No comments:
Post a Comment