Edinburgh
One of the surprising things about flying with Ryanair is coming to the realisation that you have actually decided to fly with them given the numerous human rights abuses they come up with every flight, eg approximately 2cm3 of space, instant coffee £4! And recently bleeding ears apparently!??!?!
So it was all the more surprising to discover JK Rowling sitting beside TGT2.5:2 as we were taking off. Mind you I wasn’t completely convinced until she started talking about having lived in Edinburgh, coming from Spain, visiting her only daughter etc etc. TGT2.5:2 was clearly on to it as well and was buttering up JK for an autograph, possibly a place to stay and definitely a few spare million quid.
Turns out it wasn’t JK Rowling……. I think.
Tell you what though, the Ryanair pilots must have to develop a sense of humour though:
“Good afternoon everyone, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Edinburgh. You may now disembark from both the front and back doors of the plane, and remember to walk around the wing, NOT UNDER the wing. That’s AROUND the wing, NOT UNDER the wing”.
I wonder how many times that’s happened that the pilot feels he needs to say it?
“Oh Charles, I really have to get another job, some buffoon backpacker has just walked into the jet engine again”
The flight was uneventful enough though TGT2.5:3-5 did struggle with the lack of touch screens in front of them. They were seen forlornly swiping the Safety sign on the back of the plastic headrest in front of them.
We were heading to visit our friends Brett and Erica and their daughter Tilly. Brett also goes by the name Zorgatron, Destroyer of Cats, a misquoted Larson cartoon reference. Zorg and I were at Melb Uni together and are now part of a 3 person intercontinental footy tipping competition modestly called the “Sports Lord Series” which has been going since 1997, interrupted for only one year for TGT1. I have won several times but am going through a Carlton period at the moment. It’s worth preserving though as the trophy is a brick stolen from the old Southern Stand at the MCG as it was being demolished in the 1990s.
Zorg and Erica have bought themselves an extremely nice place in Morningside a few kms to the south of the old town. Zorg and Erica have excelled themselves in the garden too, putting in some decking, a shed and some raised garden beds in such an incredibly professional manner at their first attempt that I presumed it was work done by tradies. Chapeau Zorg chapeau.
Edinburgh really is an extremely pleasant place. We had a walk up the hill behind their house which backs on to and looked out over one of the curiously large number of golf courses in Edinburgh. They seem to like golf in Scotland. Stunning views. Apparently, some golf courses let you take the kids sledding on their courses when it snows and then invite you in for a cup of hot chocolate afterwards. Extremely civilised.
We wandered into town through the Meadows in glorious sunshine and thought to ourselves, “We could live here”. Mind you this assessment was influenced by the weather which has been absurdly unseasonal. We had to put sunscreen on, IN SCOTLAND! That ain’t right. In fact, the weather for the entire trip so far has been unnervingly warm and dry. For the moment I’m not thinking about it.
As TGT2.5:5 has repeatedly explained to me the central importance of Harry Potter to all things in the universe and because JK Rowling (the real JK Rowling) was living in Edinburgh when she wrote most of the books and got a lot of inspiration from Edinburgh, we had to go on a Harry Potter Walk.
We wandered down to the designated meeting place but found it hard to find room on the footpath due to a large number of people milling about. Surely these couple of hundred people weren’t waiting for the Harry Potter tour? Turns out they were. We spent the next couple of hours visiting various place of inspiration and the coffee shop where she did her scribbling. TGT2.5:4 and TGT2.5:5 wormed their way forward and stood beside the guide for the entire one and a half hours.
We visited the real Tom Riddell’s grave in a local cemetery and we got a photo of TGT2.5:4 and TGT2.5:5 standing beside the grave with TGT2.5:5 doing her special Voldemort’s nose trick. As we wandered down through the cemetery Edinburgh castle loomed up above us with the near vertical stands that are temporarily constructed for the Edinburgh Tattoo. TGT2.5:5 said half to herself, half to the tour guide, “that looks like a Quidditch stadium”. Turns out TGT2.5:5 thinks like JK Rowling as that was where she got inspiration for the Quidditch stadium. We visited the curved street that leads down to the Grassmarket which was the inspiration for Diagon Alley and even cast a spell en masse with the handed out wands to change the traffic lights from red to green. Excellent stuff.
It was all round a pretty fun tour and TGT2.5:4, 5 were most pleased. Even TGT2.5:3 got into a bit after he got past calling it “cringe”. Only a bit though, he is nearly 14 after all. We also had coffee in JK Rowling’s brother in law’s café (where she wrote the Philosopher’s Stone”). Brett and Erica, being locals, were a bit surprised by the level of Harry Potter bits and bobs in Edinburgh. More of a tourist thing I suppose.
After the tour TGT2.5:2 found a family history office in Diagon Alley and she subsequently found out she has a few famous relatives. The poet Nan Shepherd was a cousin of some sort (currently appearing on the Scottish £5 note) and we subsequently discovered Sir Alexander Henderson Diack was also a great Uncle of some sort. In fact we found out Sir Alex had a portrait in the national portrait gallery so off we trooped to the New Town and yet another beautiful building of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. A very helpful person at the information desk informed us that yes indeed the National Portrait Gallery had Sir Alex but he was in one of their other buildings. Oh yes and which one is that? London. Ahhhh. Perhaps another time.
On the way into town one day we stopped for a late breakfast in a greasy spoon café called the “Quick and Plenty Café”. The food was, well, quick and there was plenty of it. I’ve always had a soft spot for greasy spoon cafes and this was no exception. A dying breed in London and good to see Edinburgh keeping up the good fight. We did manage to resist anything deep fried. That will have to be the next visit to Scotland.
Other excursions in Edinburgh included the Royal Mile including placing the children’s heads in the Camera Obscura box to make them look shrunk. I couldn’t tell the difference myself. Also, we ventured into the Scottish Museum which is yet another beautiful building.
We took advantage of the fact TGT2.5:3 is almost responsible and looked after TGT2.5:4, 5 and Tilly so the grownups got to go for a drink at a local pub chock full of character. The sort of place where the previous owner put up signs including “No backpackers!” Fair enough I reckon.
It was then time say our farewells to the incredibly generous Zorg, Erica and Tilly who spoiled us rotten and head north to Dundee where we could continue our couch surfing. Off to Waverley train station for a trip across the Firth of Forth. The only bummer of crossing that amazing bridge is that you can’t see the bridge because you’re essentially inside it. Anyhoo, we made it to Dundee for the first ever time and were met by Natalie, another Melb Uni friend (they really do get everywhere). Natalie and her partner Tom work at St Andrews Uni. They are the smart ones whose PhDs really are too difficult for a pleb like me to understand. The 80,000 words of my PhD could be summed with “Blah blah blah, well, maybe”, whereas theirs are much more difficult and use big words about French art and English literature and stuff. They are so clever they taught Prince William and Kate when they were at St Andrews.
They have managed to find the only modernist house in Dundee. It’s a pretty remarkable place and very distinctive. Tom’s study has possibly the largest window in all of Scotland looking out across the Firth of Tay. An extraordinary view. Sadly for them we managed to squash a few of their flowers playing soccer.
We did just a few things when in Dundee for a couple of days. We went for a lovely walk along the Tay to Broughty Beach Castle (every beach should have a castle) as well as visiting the Antarctic museum where the ship that carried Captain Scott and crew to the south has been set up on permanent display. Sadly the newly built V&A in Dundee was not quite ready to be opened but it looks pretty impressive.
It wasn’t a long enough stay with Natalie and Tom but there are so many people to see and things to do so we headed back to Edinburgh and the airport to renew ourselves with Ryanair. This time with approximately 7 hours before our flight left!!!! Ryanair did us a favour though as after we took off we swung around to get a perfect view of the Firth of Forth rail bridge. Absolutely stunning.
Planes trains and automobiles
The trip from Dundee to Shepherds Bush really should have its own separate entry but I’ll give you the abridged version. If you look at the map it’s not that far, but we had to do the following:
- · a lift to Dundee station from Natalie in her snazzy hybrid Toyota
- · train from Dundee to Edinburgh Gateway
- · tram from Edinburgh Gateway to Edinburgh Airport
- · plane from Edinburgh to Stansted (2 hours spent waiting in the terminal, we weren’t falling for that again)
- · train from Stansted to Liverpool St station
- · tube train from Liverpool St to Shepherds Bush Market station
- · bus from Shepherds Bush Market station to Old Oak Rd
TGT2.5:3-5 were fantastic actually, though we were pretty pooped when we arrived at our home away from home and a very happy return.
Cornwall next for a bit of Symons family history
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