Whist I was down in Glasgow recently I took the new fast electric train to Edinburgh to have lunch with David, a long-time friend and former colleague who has featured many times on this Blog with his dog Molly (who is still fit and well). One of my favourite posts is here. We had lunch in a small French café called La Barantine Victoria in the Grassmarket area. I didn't take a photos so have used one from Google.
I used to spend a lot of time in Edinburgh and had various friends including, for a while, David (pre-Molly) who lived there. I spent some of the morning wandering round some old haunts many of which seemed to have disappeared or been swallowed up by the plethora of new eateries being fueled by the huge influx of tourists.
Most of my exploring was in the region of The Royal Mile:
There was a Schools Climate Change march. Two things about it rather surprised me: it's examination time and many of the particupants were obviously a great deal older than school age.
The "Fudge Kitchen" catches my eye. Lovely photos, the first one of yours, is really nice, intriguing is some way. And I wonder at the way Harry Potter has changed the way I view old buildings.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK, Maywyn, I think we accept old buildings without giving them much thought. For example the houses in the first large picture include John Knox's house which was built in 1490 and Moubray House built a decade later.
DeleteI really want to see Edinburgh! Looks like you had a blue sky day for your visit.
ReplyDeleteKay, I did have a beautiful blue sky day although it wasn't warm.
DeleteEdinburgh AND on a sunny day. Just wonderful. It's my favourite city.
ReplyDeleteAlways lovely to catch up with good friends. X
Jules, I used to love staying there and felt very comfortable there. However, the plethora of tourists everywhere in the central area have rather dulled my enthusiasm (and made it very expensive). I'm not a great lover of crowds. It doesn't, of course, stop it being a great place but not a place I'd like to live now.
DeleteLooks very inviting.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of a vehicle being a terrorist. Is this something I ought to be aware of?
PS. The older ones will be the teachers.
DeleteI'm not sure, Adrian, that there were,'t more teachers and people pushing buggies than there were pupils. However it was very good natured and noisy and they were obviously having fun delivering their serious message.
DeleteAdrian I forgot about the vehicles as terrorists. It all started with the bullying of the Fat Controller.
DeleteVehicles don't have murderous tendencies, just the opposite the new Renault stops on it's own if some drunk or otherwise impaired person gets in my way. Funnily enough it doesn't stop for sheep or hay bales must have been programmed by a Somali computer expert import. Poor hay bale. I dodged the sheep on my own
DeleteThe concrete blocks are there to stop the Muslim killer drivers. Evil bastards they are. Like the bloody IRA we grew up with. Heroes to the Corbynistas. Silly folk idolising a person who gets his kicks from mixing with killers.
Climate change is just that, change. Shipping heavy engineering to third world places doesn't mitigate it's effects it just makes your flight, car. telly. fridge a bit more expensive. Disposing of rare earth materials could have an effect as they are concentrated in catalytic converters and good batteries but it mainly affects the poor devils digging them up for the green energy industry. We all rely on metals and fossil fuels, use them as you do, have fun and stop feeling guilty.
This is all about feelings and not science. This is your blog I'll have a proper rant on mine. Should I become that interested.
It's a while since you had a Vintage Adrian rant.
DeleteWell, climate change is marching much faster than we are.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, Red.
DeleteThese days, EVERYTHING is marching faster than I am.
DeleteMarcheline, you are but a spring chicken.
DeleteI love armchair travelling and you enable me to do it so often!
ReplyDeleteThey said we lost our innocence after 9/11 but running down pedestrians seems so much worse to me. I guess because it's more intimate
Kylie, I'm pleased you enjoy my occasional forays. I really should post more of them. I agree with you about the intimacy of the knife attacks, attacks with vehicles and walking into a crowd and blowing ones self and others to smithereens.
DeleteMy oldest lived in Edinburgh for a few years, in Stockbridge (?) I think. It is a beautiful city, filled with wonderful shops and restaurants. I loved visiting.
ReplyDeleteCro, Stockbridge still has it's 'villagy' atmosphere. I had friends who had a house there and friends who lived in the adjacent Ravelston next to Mary Erskines. It was lovely visiting but definitely not my cup of tea as a permanent residence.
DeleteYou could have joined the schoolkids' climate change demo. Personally, I am heartened by it. At last many young people are getting off their backsides and raising their voices, becoming politicised again. For a long time it seemed as if the young were sleeping, dreaming selfish dreams. In fact, you could have claimed to be world leading climatologist Professor G.Edwards of The University of Stornoway and the crowd would have cheered you like David Attenborough's less well-known cousin.
ReplyDeleteYes, YP. I agree with you wholeheartedly about the youngsters being motivated. We are unlikely to be around when disaster engulfs the world but our children, perhaps, and their children definitely, if nothing is done.
DeleteAccording to our New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we have exactly 12 years left until disaster engulfs the world, as you put it in your reply to Yorkshire Pudding. I pray two things: that you will very likely still be around twelve years hence, and that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "Schools Climate Change March" struck me as both odd and funny. Were they marching because they want the climate in the schools to change? Announcing that schools will be doing something about climate change by next March? A portion of the populace out for a stroll and causing confusion by stringing random nouns together?
I am befuddled. But you knew that.
Bob, I truly hope that Ms Ocasio-Cortez is wrong. Assuming that she is wrong whether I wish to be alive 12 years from now depends largely on my mental and physical health at that time.
Delete"A march organised by, and largely comprised of, people connected with schools, for the purpose of persuading the Government to do something to lessen the effect humans are having on climate change." doesn't quite have the pithy ring needed to grab media attention.
So far, I have not yet made it to Scotland but what i know of Edinburgh definitely makes it sound like a place well worth visiting.
ReplyDeleteGood to know Molly is still well and fit!
Meike, I'm sure that one day, when the time is right for you, Scotland will welcome you with open arms. There is a lot to see but it's a relatively small country: one can drive from Gretna Green to John O'Groats in under 7 hours.
DeleteAh, Scotland.... heaven on earth! I prefer the countryside to the cities, but I do have very fond memories of our visit to Edinburgh last go round. My favorite place is the west coast. Actually, an island off the west coast... *wink*.
ReplyDeleteMarcheline, haste ye back.
DeleteThanks for the tour, Graham. Scotland...a country worth visiting. :)
ReplyDeleteLee, it's a fine country well worth visiting.
Deleteoh that is definitely one place that has been on my bucketlist for quite a few years, mainly because of my family ancestry to Scotland.
ReplyDeleteWell, Amy, I really hope that you make it one day. Looking out of my window at the seventh (at least) day of rain and cold (a balmy 12℃ this almost midsummer's day morning) I could really do with some Northland just now.
DeleteNice street pictures. I don't remember much (or anything) of Edinburgh except the castle. (Visited on one of our family trips in the UK back in the early 1970s.) - We have a lot more of those things blocking traffic from pedestrian streets here as well, ever since the terror attack in Stockholm a couple of years ago. As for the climate marches, they kind of stir up memories for me from the 1970s as well. But then it was chiefly about anti nuclear power.
ReplyDeleteApologies, Monica. I'm not sure why I missed this comment. I remember the CND marches well although I was never a visual campaigner.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that I hated (with a vengeance) Edinburgh the 5 long years I worked there.
ReplyDeleteBut I've never been fond of it - being a Lanarkian/Shottsonian West Coaster ;-) It was always so cold! That biting wind blowing up Princes St! Ugh!!
Anyway... I am not so jaundiced ahainst it now - so maybe it was work-association...
I am off to St Foy La Grande market tomorrow. An early start - though it's not far from Chateau Tournefeuille where I've been staying for the last couple of weeks.
I hope you're well GB. :-) Besos - Yvonne
Yvonne, I enjoy Edinburgh to visit but, like you, I am, and was born and always have been, a WestCoaster. I have spent many happy shopping trips in St Foy market. I have stayed in Villeneuve de Duras on many occasions with a mutual friend. It is a lovely area of France to which I would return again at the drop of a hat if I were able.
Delete