The Day Before the Tour Started

After a restorative night’s sleep (jet lag favors those flying West) we had a nice breakfast of tea and toast at Barbara and Oliver’s, then Cassidy and I hit some thrift stores.

Yes, Edinburgh is full of culture, architecture, and history. It also has some kick butt charity shops (as they are called) and I know where every single one of them is. Cassidy and I started in Stockbridge, strolling there with Jack along the Leith River Walk via a shady tunnel of greenery. Jack normally doesn’t care for walking, but that one through Dean Village (a historic part of Edinburgh) was lovely. We parked him with a pot of tea at a bakery and pillaged Stockbridge. It was most satisfying.

Jack and I had a family lunch at a French institute restaurant just that little bit off the beaten path (read: not six people per square inch like the rest of the High Street.)  We aimed Cassidy at the Victoria Bow (famous for historic shops, the oldest Quaker meeting house in Scotland, and the Harry Potter store) and enjoyed catching up on family with my beloved sister-in-law Alison and with Alison and Jack’s cousin Donald, the family historian. He had brought us six pages of family tree. (Alison brought us t-shirts, Jack’s quoting the famous declaration of Arbroath paragraph, mine warning people of my easy distraction via books and cats. Nailed it.)

Cassidy and I found each other again outside St Giles cathedral, and the weather being less changeable than the day before, we crossed one more thing off her bucket list: the ascension of Arthur’s Seat.

(FYI there are four Arthur’s seats in the United Kingdom, one in each country that makes it up. Convenient for tourism that way. Each claims to be his final resting place. We also have six graves of Robin Hood. But only one Nessie.)

You used to be able to drive up this massive mound, but now it’s on foot or forget it. Halfway up, we considered “forget it” but we were leapfrogging with a group of five German lads. When they passed us one of them would shout “Come on girls.” When we passed them we would give thumbs up signs. We all made it to the top, where we collapsed for a few minutes before the requisite photos. There really is a beautiful view up there, all the way to the sea. Cassidy picked a few flowers to preserve in her phone case.

Down was easier. We headed into Edinburgh and saw Greyfriar’s Bobby (the statue dedicated to a loyal dog). Cassidy works for a vet practice. She had carefully looked up the “best hot chocolate in Scotland” which was .4 from Greyfriar’s Bobby, so we found it easily (the line wrapped around the corner). She had cocoa, I had gelato. Neither of us worried about the calories, having just climbed Arthur’s Seat. Life was good. The seagull who got the last bit of my cone when the double-scooper of almond amaretto and Belgian chocolate raspberry defeated me also had a good time.

We had logged 9.25 miles according to this thing in Cassidy’s wrist, so we headed back to BnO, stopping for a charity shop or two, but our hearts weren’t in it; our aching feet overruled them. Since it was nearing suppertime, I asked Cassidy did she want to pick up groceries, raid BnO’s fridge, or avail ourselves of the world class international cuisine available in Edinburgh, many of which we would pass on the way back to BnO’s place.

She wanted a fish supper. We went back to the chippy by BnO’s.

That evening we chatted with Mark, who again kept us laughing, and enjoyed the sunken garden out back. The tour started tomorrow, so it was early to bed, knowing we had a big day tomorrow meeting the gang and starting the travel in earnest.