Well I could not have planned the timing of this blog post better if I had tried. I am just battering out blog posts about our trip back to Britain as and when a quiet moment arises between chores and entertaining / refereeing the kids yet by happy coincidence the subject matter and timing of this post happily coincide: exactly 19 years ago today, Mr Pict and I got married in Edinburgh; this blog post is all about the tour down memory lane that we dragged our kids on as part of our day in Edinburgh.
First up on our nostalgia tour of the day was the street where we got married all those years ago. We had a civil ceremony in what was the city’s registry office on Victoria Street. Sadly India Buildings has been disused for over a decade and is awaiting some sort of development. Victoria Street, however, barely seemed to have changed from when we lived in Edinburgh. I have always loved Victoria Street for its elegant curve and its stacked architectural design, colourful shop fronts with arches below and more impressive buildings on the terrace above.
Here is a photo of Mr Pict and me outside India Buildings with our four sons and my youngest nephew.
We wanted to take the kids to see the buildings at the University of Edinburgh’s main site where we had studied for our undergraduate degrees. The whole area, however, is undergoing something of a radical transformation it seems and we could not see past construction hoarding. The kids had to make do with seeing some of the less impressive buildings and listening to our tales. From Potterow, they could just make out the shape of McEwan Hall – covered in a web of scaffolding – where we had graduated from our first degrees almost two decades ago.
Having been disappointed by our ability to tour the main campus, we took the boys to see the wonderful Old College. The buildings around the quadrangle of Old College were designed by three of Scotland’s most famous architects – Robert Adam, William Henry Playfair and Robert Rowand Anderson, who was responsible for the dome – and the architecture certainly impresses. The University’s School of Law is housed in Old College and Mr Pict undertook studies there in his first year. I was familiar with Old College because of admin services being situated there and also from visiting the Talbot Rice Gallery. It was always a lovely, quiet, restful spot.
The final leg in our Recent Family History Travel Through Time was to take the boys to Where It All Began. Mr Pict and I first met because we happened to be billeted in the same student accommodation for the first year of our studies. It was a converted house on a residential street in a rather nice part of the city and the sixty of us accommodated there were actually the last to be so. The summer that we all moved on to pastures new, the property was sold off and reverted to being a private residential property once more. In the photo below, the window in the grey tiled roof on the left hand side of the image was the window to my bedroom.
So 19 years after we got hitched, almost 22 since we first met, that was our little Personal History Trip around Edinburgh with the kids. I wonder what we will be up to next year for our 20th Wedding Anniversary?!?!
A Pict in PA 
Aw, university sweethearts! Happy anniversary, you crazy kids!
I would say, if we moved back to the U.K., Edinburgh is where I would want to live and your pictures just stir that feeling, but there is not much call for chemical engineers with petro-chem or natural gas experience around those parts. Oh, well.
Thank you very much. No, Aberdeen would be a much more likely venue for those skills, I’m afraid. Edinburgh is a wonderful city, rich in culture and history, full of interesting things to see and do, easy to explore since its compact and full of green spaces.
Happy anniversary! My husband and I celebrate year two 🙂 We met for the first time face to face in Las Vegas.
Aw, you are still in the newlywed stage, Wendy. The years go very quickly. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were still newly weds.
Happy anniversary! Its was nice to show your kids where you met and where you stayed. They will cherish their parents love story more.
Thanks. Yes I think it was the Family Historian in me that wanted to take them on the tour. I’ve taken them to places associated with long dead ancestors so it only seemed right to take them to places linked to their own parents.
Agree with you. I only got to go to where I was conceived when I was already married and only with my mother with us. It would have been wonderful if my father was still with us so he could relieve his version of their love story.
Happy Anniversary! Edinburgh is such a beautiful and characterful city 🙂
Thank you. Edinburgh is one of my favourite places in the world.
Happy anniversary Laura, sounds like a great thing to do with your kids, might take a leaf out of your book!! We had our 21st anniversary this year, don’t you just wonder where the years went. Poignant too for me, my mum passed away recently unexpectedly and we’ve been having lots of conversations with my dad about their courtship and meeting, so interesting but just wish we’d talked like this before to get her side of a fascinating story!
I’m so sorry for your loss, Joy. I wish you gentle days ahead.
That sense of regret – the “I wish I had asked” – occurred to me when my Gran died. It was deciding to find out who the people were who populated her anecdotes that got me into family history and I’ve been obsessively hooked ever since. I think that’s what then compels me to pass this sort of information into my kids now.