Sunny Edinburgh

I was sad to be leaving the manor but it is nice to be in our own apartment, in another city and I'm sure people reading this blog will be glad of the change too. There's only so many times you can read about Big Space or bad food. The apartment is fine but there is a problem. There's no clump of hair in the drain, no black mould in the tub and of course no potato fixated chef. Sigh. I guess we'll just have to cope. And we have a TV after seven weeks of not having one.
The apartment is not on Scotland Street as S naughtily told my mother but it is very close. On our first day here I was determined to go there but S was keen on the botanical gardens (just down the road) so I decided to save my haj for when he was at work. (For those wondering about why I would want to go to Scotland Street all will become abundantly clear soon). The gardens are close by but I think that my navigational issues are contagious so we never did find the gardens. We did however walk all over Edinburgh. We saw the castle, the royal mile and lots of typical Edinburgh streetscapes. It is nice to be in a new city and especially one like Edinburgh. We took Jack for a walk in the park but he just wanted to run away and S had to keep chasing after him. The castle was packed with tourists (wearing the most unsuitable shoes - there are lots of cobblestones about). It was all set up for the tattoo. It's funny on TV it seems larger (but then I never watch for long due to my bagpipe allergy). I heard a Japanese tour guide say something in Japanese then say "brave heart.....William Wallace san" as he pointed to this statue.The Royal Mile was incredibly touristy with the Scotch Whisky museum and all sorts of trashy shops with punny titles. My favourite dodgy item they were selling was the kilt towel.We walked and walked our little legs off and decided to find somewhere to eat. We eventually went into a cafe which was kind of like a pub as well. We had both had a hankering for a burger (who knows why though secretly I think S wanted to find somewhere that made deep fried mars bars) but we ended up having a great nachos with lots of jalapenos but were not allowed to imbibe till 12.30. Jack went to sleep so we sat and read the paper and listened to some groovy music and I had a hot chocolate. I almost choked on it when I read the real estate pages.
When Jack woke up again we headed to tesco (boo hiss) and bought food for dinner. It's funny because here tesco is kind of down market but they still stock buffalo mozzarella, aromatic crispy duck with pancakes and freshly made pesto.
I was going to make a veggie lasagna (Diane's signature dish) and roasted and chopped and compiled my gastronomic celebration of my return to the kitchen, then the oven didn't work. So we had a curry instead.