Basic HTML Version
4
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
Scotland’s Pompeii
As early as 3600 BC the Persians filled goatskins
with water to prevent the deep cold of the desert floor
entering their bones and closer to home the freezing
nights also dictated the need for warm beds in a little
stone age settlement known today as Skara Brae.
On the West coast of Mainland, the largest of the
Orkney Islands Skara Brae is Europe’s most complete
Neolithic village. The eight houses are clustered
together and during their occupation from 3180 to
about 2500 BC they were covered in earth and grass
being linked to each other by tunnels to keep the fifty
or occupants out of the fierce winter weather. During
their working life these housed from the outside would
have looked rather like Telly Tubby houses but inside
it’s almost pure
Flintstones
. Brilliantly preserved this
is Scotland’s Pompeii.
Open the stone slab door of the round houses
(complete with stone “lock”) and the first thing you
see against the far wall is a stone dresser where the
family once displayed their ornaments. Either side of
Reading In Bed
The earliest account of a bed in literature is probably
that of Odysseus and Penelope in Homers epic poem
The Odyssey
written in the 7th or 8th century BC
tells the story of Odysseus’ ten year struggle to get
home to Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War, When
Odysseus finally makes it home his wife Penelope
isn’t too sure it is him (that old chestnut started
here!). As a test she orders the loyal and aged
servant Eurycleia to move their bridal bed and when
Odysseus angrily declares that the bed is immovable
having been built from the trunk of an olive tree
around which the house had been built Penelope
knows that this man is her husband.
Don’t Let The Bed Bugs Bite
Incidentally one of the most common ways in which
bed bugs can arrive in your bed is via your library
books! So borrowers beware. Bed bugs are making
something of a comeback helped on by central
heating and the phasing out of insecticidal chemicals
found to be carcinogenic. If you’re lucky enough not
to know what they look like they are flat and oval
shaped, about the size of an apple seed, dark reddish
brown if full, light translucent brown if hungry.
And they like library books, the spines of hardbacks
in particular but they’ll make do with a paperback.
It really is worth a quick check before getting them
stamped. Look out for dark spots and stains, tiny
specs of bedbug poo or white oval shaped eggs.
Tap them on the table to see if anything falls out. If
asked I say it’s just a superstition like an elderly aunt
taping the barometer. Bed bugs are a huge problem
and growing problem in the United States (where
there’s even a bedbug register of hotels and motels!)
so that’s the other thing to avoid – Americans!