It was not a very nice day today, so we got the train to Edinburgh to see if it was any better there.
It wasn’t. It was just the same smirr falling from the same sky on different buildings. So we put our hoods up and walked Morrison Street then through the canyon at the Conference Centre and on to Lothian Road where we stopped for coffee at Nero. Thankfully the coffee was better than the watered stuff we seem to get in Glasgow nowadays. I must try the Black Sheep coffee shop in Glasgow to see if it’s an improvement. After coffee and a pastry each, we walked through the Farmers Market (which does seem to have its fair share of farmers and fishers) and I got myself a shoulder slice of hoggit which is a beast that’s older than a lamb and younger than a sheep. Murdo rears hoggits. I always try to get meat from Annanwater Farm in the farmers markets, because it is consistently good quality.
We walked on to the Grassmarket with its collection of stalls selling what is really just tourist tat. While we were there we had a look at the menu for Petit Paris, but decided it would be too busy on a weekend. Better to go on a weekday. The crowds were thickening now. Some of the individual in the crowds were very thick, standing in the middle of the road taking a photo of the castle on their phones, oblivious to the horns of cars blaring right at their backsides. They thought this was Scotland. Land of tartan and kilts and castles, but no cars!
As we climbed up the curving hill of Victoria Street the crowds and the queues got thicker. Thick enough to stand in a queue, in the rain, to walk round a Harry Potter shop. Needless to say, there weren’t many Scottish voices in that queue. We walked on. Eventually we got to JL Edinburgh. This was what JL looked like in Glasgow before it became a clearing house for all the second hand stuff that folk found they could live without. Scamp found stuff there that were on her shopping list for today. I walked round the “Toyshop” on the 5th floor and just looked at stuff that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t afford.
When we left JL we went looking for somewhere to eat, eventually settling on Wagamama. We had to wait for a table, but in out of the rain, thankfully as the rain was getting heavier as the day wore on. We were served by a Japanese lady who was careful to point out that my Grilled Chicken Ramen would be a bit ‘bland’ and when I asked for her suggestion she chose Shirodashi Pork Belly Ramen and she was right! Scamp had Chicken Raisukaree curry which looked very pretty and apparently tasted great apart from the ‘squeaky’ sugar snap peas!
Suitably fed we walked to the station just as the train was pulling in. We were entertained by two Edinburgh intelligentsia. The lady was the ‘numbers’ person and the gentleman was the investor, preparing to make his first million just as soon as he was old enough to buy a scratch card. It was an education, especially because they were both deadly serious.
Well, the rain hadn’t stopped all day, but by the time we got home it had dried up and at about 6pm a watery sun shone for a while.
PoD turned out to be two workers on the top of a multi storey block. I’m guessing they’d a current Working At Height certificate.
No plans for tomorrow.