mundane life , two black cats, & other stuff
Today I am once again sharing scrap-book pages from my September 2009 trip to Scotland. These pages reflect a day at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum and nearby area. I remember it was real Scottish weather, rainy and cool. One of the unplanned highlights was listening to a piper outside a church and watching the people, dressed up in their finest — many a man in a kilt, walking in for a country wedding. 
The way gravestones are engraved was changed over the years, as these photos show:
20th Century
21st Century
One look at this effigy and it is clear that it honors someone who was wealthy and important. Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury, or Bess of Hardwick as she is often known, was responsible for building the original Chatsworth house and the ‘New’ Hardwick Hall (known as more glass than wall). She also designed her own memorial, pictured above, which sits in Derby Cathedral above the vault containing her coffin. A one time lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth I, Bess is also an ancestor of the current Queen Elizabeth II. Marrying & burying 4 husbands, becoming richer each time it is clear she was also the greatest ‘social climber’ of her day.
While in Concord today we decided to take a walk through the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Our objective was to check out “Authors Ridge“, the resting place of Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I am very glad we did. The whole cemetery is picturesque.
