Where are the Scottish Honours?

On Christmas Day 1950, four Scottish students took the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey, London to Scotland.

The stone's custodian later left it on the altar of Arbroath Abbey, in the safekeeping of the Church of Scotland. Once the London police were informed of its whereabouts, the Stone was returned to Wesminster. Afterwards, rumours circulated that a copy had been made of the Stone, and that the returned Stone was not in fact the original.

So what happened to the original? There are those who believe that whoever holds the Honours of Scotland also keeps the Stone of Destiny, with Scotland's full regalia, ready to crown the last descendant of the Royal Scots.

The Scottish Crown jewels were until recently, held within the stronghold of Edinburgh Castle. However, it has recently come to light that the jewels may be fakes and the originals were stolen from the Castle during the last Jacobite Rebellion. There is much speculation that they are currently under guard in one of Scotland's great country houses.

Rumours are rife that the Honours are being held at one of the following Scottish estates: Hopetoun House, Falkland Palace, Linlithgow Palace or Netherton.

All owners of these great houses deny any knowledge of the whereabouts of the Honours, although it is rumoured that Netherton has a secured strong room. No one has had recent access to this place so who knows what secrets that great house may be harbouring?

* With thanks to my sister Valerie for the prose.

A welcome, a Basement and a sneaky peek!

First of all, a very warm welcome to all new followers.   I'm very pleased to have you here and hope you like what you see.

Well, that's it.    That's all there is to see of the basement.  It's finished with the exception of any additional "bits" I'm likely to find.   The bin needs some rubbish and I'll be on the lookout for any other items I think may be "basement worthy".

I was thinking, when taking the photos, it's a bit too tidy but I'm not good at messy so I'm happy to leave things as they are for the time being.

All I have to do now is show you the pictures - going from the left to right and one or two you've seen before.

Oops, I nearly forgot the housemartins!

and finally, a wee sneaky peek of what's coming next..............

The Laundry!

Bin there, done that!

After quite a prolonged search for a suitable dustbin to purchase it became clear that there wasn't anything out there that suited my purpose so in the end, I had to make one.

I came across an excellent article featuring a Winter Scene created by Robin Britton and Celia Thomas of Nostalgia in Miniatures Workshops. The article was featured over three months (January, February and March) in the Dolls House & Miniature Scene Magazine and the detailed instructions for the creation of the bin were published in the February issue.

First of all I had to cut a piece of corrugated card (the sort used for packaging books), dampen it and fix it round a suitable shape and leave to dry.

While that was happening I used the template provided to produce the lid.   This was then used to cut the required shapes onto white card.   (The top shape is actually round, it just wouldn't lie flat - that's what happens when you use greaseproof paper from a roll!)

I had to join the circle and once the glue for that had dried, the shaped piece was glued on top.

It then looked like this.   The next step was to snip into the lower layer and bend down to create the lid and add a thin strip of card round  the edge so that the lid fitted neatly over the bin.

When the card had dried, it was then removed from the form (dampening the card certainly made it hold it's shape very well) and a strip of paper was glued over the join and tucked down inside.

I then drew round the base of the bin and cut out the circle to create the bottom.   This was glued in place.

Little strips of card were cut to form the handle on the lid and one on either side.   It was then ready to paint.

I deviated a bit from the instructions at this point and used Steel coloured enamel paint (instead of silver) as I was after a "galvanised steel" look.

The bin featured in the article has a more rusted and grungy look to it.

My first coat was the steel paint followed (as instructed) by a mix of steel and black, this was put on then blotted off with scrunched up paper towel.   The next step of the instructions stated that I then had to add a little white paint to the mix and, using a thin stick, run the paint down the ridges.   This all worked absolutely fine but having seen the finish after one coat of paint, I let the whole thing dry and went back to the original finish.   I have a hard time dealing with "well used and grungy"!

I should really have gone on and added  some terracotta paint to give it that well used rusty look (as per the the article) but as I was happy with the finish I had and it fitted in well with what I had in my mind's eye, I left it alone.

I look care to paint the top inch of the inside of the bin because, in time, it's my intention to give the bin contents but at the moment I'm just pleased I managed to find one that did the job so well.

Thank you Robin and Celia for the very clear and detailed instructions.