Keepin' on trucking ...

I am now so ridiculously behind in all the things I've meant to write about that I'm tempted to wipe the slate clean and start from today. Except that today was rather dull, so I'd then put off posting until I felt I had something more interesting to recount, and before you know it I'd be behind all over again. I'm behind at work, behind on chores around the flat, behind on birthday cards and gifts (and now Mother's Day too ...), and behind on reducing my behind in anticipation of yet another swimsuit season. It seems like just yesterday that I cast aside leg-revealing skirts, arm-revealing tops, fake tan lotion, razors (hah - kidding - sort of) and my punishing gym routine with delight, looking forward to a winter of bulky sweaters and carb-loading. Every autumn I do this, and every spring I pay for it, meaning that from the months of April to July I am hungry and therefore angry and unpleasant. Consider yourself warned! I do wish the people I work with would stop finding reasons to have cake. Always with the cake! Cake that sits there on the table in the middle of our 'pod' - yes, I work in a pod now - and becomes absolutely, completely, impossibly irresistable during that 4:00 pm sugar crash.

Anyway, to follow from the last post, our travels continued from the Lake District on up to Edinburgh. This was the first time Jeff and I had returned since living there nine years ago (good lord I'm old). I was kind of anxious about what it would be like to visit again, since that year was probably the hardest one of my entire life. As soon as I opened the car door I smelled the peculiar baked beans odour that permeates much of the city, or at least the area around the residences we lived in. I had entirely forgotten about the baked beans smell! No one ever seems to comment on it, so I have no idea what it is - though a whiskey distillery is a safe bet in Scotland. You're never far from one! (Another time I'll tell you about my ill-fated attempt to join the university's 'water of life' society - I'm apparently just not man enough for the single malts.) We had spectacular weather - warmer than Greece on one day - and I really enjoyed hitting our old haunts again. It was reassuring to discover the Metropole Cafe still there, the Elephant House and Cafe Florentine still kicking, the university campus as drab and depressing as ever, and the streets that same mix of picturesqueness and grittiness that I remember so well. A few photos, if you will:

Like I said - warmer than Greece!

Looking toward North Bridge and ultimately the castle:

We climbed Arthur's seat for old times' sake. I rather suspect this perspective will confuse anyone who hasn't climbed it themselves - look for the little person at bottom left for scale. You can see the castle and the Scott monument in the background, and Salisbury Crags in the foreground.

And, as always, I close with the pub.