It all started with an ID card.

A visit to my old place of work to pick up my emeritus staff id card. Then off to the library to get the card activated. The building on the left, built post-war from good solid granite houses chemistry and geology. The 60s concrete building on the right houses physics (Natural Philosophy in my day) and and engineering. The recently built library, made from glass and concrete is in the centre.

Mission accomplished I headed off up the Chanonry to the mediaeval St Machar's Cathedral. The extra is the 1749 tombstone of William Paul, Shoe Maker. Stones of that vintage often have symbols of mortality and immortality. William's is adorned with a symbol of our possible immortality, the winged soul leaving the grave on the day of judgement. 

These old stones may also have  symbols of the trade or profession of the deceased. A shoemaker, for example may be indicated by a last or a shoe. Not for the first time I found myself pondering what symbols our family stone might bear. Mrs T being a school mistress an alphabet or a book perhaps, and for me, being an old zoologist, perhaps a wood-mouse, an Orkney vole, a mole or a spotted hyaena, all creatures that I have worked on?