Up and out of the hotel by 8:30. Quick taxi to Waverley Station and on the 9:30 train home. All with very minimal fuss. The weather turned grey and ugly, the rain started as we left the station. Our departure was timed to perfection.

Actually, I say with minimal fuss but…for a while now, one of our wheelie bags has been suffering with a gammy leg. Well, a gammy wheel, actually. I’ve known about it for ages but after getting home and unpacking and dumping it, empty, in the loft, I’ve just completely forgotten about it. Until, of course, the next time I take it down from the loft, pack it and try and wheel it up to the station. It’s like dragging a dead body wearing one roller skate. It has generally managed to limp along a bit, with the wheel locking then freeing up every few hundred miles, so I put up with it. This trip, however, things did not improve. By the time we returned home and I’d dragged it home in the heat and sunshine of south east England, the wheel was flat. I’m not talking a lack of air. It was once solid rubber. By the time we arrived home, it was as round as a brick. Would have worked quite well on ice, I fancy. Suffice to say that as soon as I’d unpacked it, I attacked it with big scissors and gleefully dumped the pieces in the bin.

And so, with the final grim moments of our wheelie bag (which will now have to be replaced), that brings to an end our short trip to Edinburgh.

Today was a day of two extremes. We enjoyed both the best tourist attraction and the blurst. An interesting parallel.

After a decent sleep in, we set off for the bus stop to Ocean Terminal and to the Royal Yacht, Britannia. Before joining Her Maj, we stopped at Costa’s for a coffee and breakfast. God, I hate Costa’s! Why is their service so bad? First they growl at me and then they assume I’ve ordered the same size drink by calling it different things. And then act like I’ve got it wrong. OK, 7 out of 10 coffee drinkers may prefer Costa’s coffee but I reckon 10 out 10 prefer Starbuck’s service. Mr Costa obviously makes far too much money if he thinks he can just not give a toss about his customers. It’s a business model that is doomed to fail and I bet I know who’ll get the blame. It’ll be the customers. Most annoying was the fact that, just up the escalators, bold as brass, there was a Starbucks!

Anyway, that was but a blip on the day and hopefully, I’ll have the sense NEVER to drink coffee in Costa’s again. The Royal Yacht, Britannia is advertised as the best tourist site in Edinburgh and it is. It is simply fantastic. Apart from the fact that you can roam at will (with an excellent talking stick) you can also take photos of whatever you like. And that’s all besides the wonderful boat itself. It’s great! From the Queen’s bedroom to the engine room. I recommend it all.

Royal yacht Britannia at Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh

I’m a bit annoyed at Stormin’ Norman though. Apparently when he visited at the end of the Gulf War, he was shown the engine room and said “OK, so that’s the museum, can I see the real engine room now?” Just because it’s all shiny and clean. I thought it looked fantastic.

There were so many highlights, it’s difficult to pick just a few…but I’ll try.

Wombat Tennis. In the Officer’s Anteroom, where they would relax and have a few drinks, there is a ceiling fan, upon which sits a stuffed wombat. The rules of the game were simple. The wombat would be thrown up into the fan and then be batted about the room after it was fired out by the fan blades. Apparently the wombat had numerous visits to the ship’s doctor for sewing up. Sounds suspiciously like the Drones to me.

The Rum Tub. In the Royal Family’s Sun Lounge, where they would relax and kick back, there is a half tub that has written on the side, The Queen, God Bless Her. It was from this tub that the men would be given their rum ration. Up to 1970, at any rate and before it found its way up to the Sun lounge.

Seeing the Queen’s and Prince Philip’s bedrooms was a bit of a treat. Her’s is quite girly while Phil has decided to go a long way masculine…just in case there’s any doubt. And, of minor interest, I heard today that Phil sneaks a radio into Ascot each year in order to listen to the Test Cricket. So, I hear you say, what of it? Well, apparently, he sneaks it in under his top hat! Classic Prince Philip. Anyway, their rooms are identical in size and shape and each had their own bathrooms complete with a thermometer to ensure the baths were at the right royal temperature.

And, of course, there was the mad family from Finland who couldn’t quite work out how to get onto the boat in the first place who then managed to accompany us for the first few decks…until we managed to ditch them overboard.

Only one downer…the restaurant was full (it only opened in March) even though half the place had empty tables in it, which, of course meant that Mirinda was tempted to engage in a long and pointless argument with the young daffy thing who was telling us they were full. Fortunately, Mirinda saw the pointlessness of it all and so we ate ashore. But this is a minor quibble. The Royal Yacht, Britannia is highly recommended! And, there’s no excuse, as it’s only a bus ride from the centre of Edinburgh.

We had lunch at a family themed restaurant upstairs in the shopping centre which served really nice salmon fishcakes and featured a little girl who freaked out everyone by bursting a balloon. Not least herself.

We then jumped aboard a bus back to Edinburgh. We had a few options but decided to go and see the Camera Obscura. Now, this was entirely my fault and I take full responsibility for it. My excuse is that during my Urbanisation Studies I read about Geddes and the camera obscura in the Outlook Tower. How he would look down on Edinburgh which was projected via mirrors. Of course, my lecturer recommended seeing it if any of us visited Edinburgh. OK, my lecturer was about 80 and probably when he visited Edinburgh, as well as the original trams being still there, the camera obscura was a lot better, but that’s still no reason for it to be so bad.

Here’s the thing. The camera obscura is a brilliant invention, which projects a moving image onto a surface. That doesn’t sound very good but if you mount it in a tower overlooking Edinburgh Old Town and project the image onto a table in the centre of the room, it’s pretty impressive. This is all I wanted to see. I was happy to pay to see it. Maybe even the rooftop view of…the rooftops. But.

Up the narrow staircase we went. It’s an old tower so don’t expect lifts or carpet. Then the first wave of kids hit you. What they have done is turn the whole place into a sort of magic, visual allusion tower. For kids this is great. Actually a lot of the stuff was pretty amazing for us adults as well but not when you have thousands of kids trying to enjoy them more. Especially the French school kids who were like a virus. Just when you left one room full there was always more ahead.

Anyway, we gradually worked our way to the top only to find that people were only allowed into the camera obscura part in timed groups and were given a talk. We had to wait 50 minutes. This wasn’t going to happen.

View from the top of the outlook tower, Old Town, Edinburgh

Mirinda was seriously pissed off. She stormed down the stairs, went straight up to the young lad behind the counter and demanded our money back. He obviously realised there was little point in argument and said “Sure, but could I just ask why?” as he opened the cash register and fished out our cash. And Mirinda told him “It’s crowded, and smelly and I’m not waiting 50 minutes.” I thought she was quite restrained in not mentioning the French kids.

We walked back to our hotel.

HOWEVER…The bestest end to our break in Edinburgh. Our dinner tonight was at Hawke Hunter (12 Picardy Place, phone 0131 557 0952). Genius food, great service. Absolutely fantastic. If you are ever in Edinburgh, go there for dinner!!! Hopefully you’ll get the blonde waitress. Though Mirinda wasn’t as keen on her bubbliness as I was.

Awoke to the sweet strains of Born Free, sung with gusto and a strong Edinburgh accent. The workers are back, just outside our window, taking the scaffolding down or putting more up. At least they have the decency not to start work until after 8.

This is probably a good time to talk about the trail of salt carpet design. It struck me the first time I stepped from the lift on the third floor of our hotel. The big trail of salt, sprinkled along the red carpet of the corridor. And then I realised that it was, actually, the design. A very odd idea for a design of carpet. Salt trail. I was so amazed, I took a photo.

Trail of salt along the carpet

A big shopping day for Mirinda, which means she wanders around and spends nothing while I go and wander around art galleries. We started with breakfast at a small deli type place, which holds the record for the longest time taken to toast a sandwich, on the way to Princes Street and then we parted ways.

I went to the National Art Gallery, which, though small, has some amazing paintings. Of course the two Titians are there. Last year there was a big brouhaha because the guy that owns them wants to sell them and decided to give the country the first option. Then came the credit crunch and the collapse of all things financial. The country decided to buy them. I honestly think the money would have been better spent helping out people who had to lose their houses. I’ve seen better Titians.

There is a wonderful Botticelli though and a fantastic Rembrandt self portrait when he was 51. There is also a St Sebastien, painted by Van Dyck. Interestingly it is before the arrows. St Seb is being tied to a tree by two ruffians and talking to a Roman centurion on a horse. The only reference to arrows is a quiver lying in the foreground at the bottom of the painting. Sebastien is also very pale, almost heavenly. The painting is huge.

St Sebastien by Van Dyck, hanging in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

In another room there is a second St Sebastien but this one is just his head and shoulders with a single arrow piercing his white, milky throat. It is an eerily beautiful painting by Francesco Furini.

Leaving the art gallery I wandered up to Starbucks for some much needed coffee then walked over to the National Portrait Gallery, which is closed until 2011, obviously opening along with the new trams. Which are replacing the trams that were already there before they ripped them all out.

Mirinda rang and we met up for dim sum at the Saigon Saigon. I’ve never had dim sum and this restaurant hasn’t sold it to me very well. Lots of gloopy stuff. Apart from the steamed buns that Nigel’s so fond of and the spring rolls, the rest was pretty glutinous. The weirdest stuff was the rice porridge with duck and very salty egg suspended in it.

After a particularly unsatisfying lunch, we headed down to the cinema to see Duplicity at the complex called Omni. What an odd place. You buy everything at the same place. Tickets, food, ice cream, popcorn, everything. What this means is that everything takes a very long time. Still, we bought our tickets and went to the film in the fantastic gold cinema. An excellent movie, very enjoyable. And I’m not a big Julia Roberts fan. Nice twist at the end.

We then had a stroll around town (walking only along flat streets as Mirinda is sick of the hills) and made our way back to the hotel. On the way we found a very odd sign. It seems, and I’m not sure whether it’s because of the whole tram thing, that when attempting to acquire a taxi in Edinburgh, it is vitally important to adopt the proper stance as clearly indicated by the sign below which is proudly erected along the Leith Way:

This just leaves me baffled

Our first stop this morning was to be Costa’s on Waverley Bridge but, sadly, it was not yet opened and so we ventured further along Princes Street until we found the most unappealing café we could. This turned out to be at a BHS. The store itself did not open until 11 but the café was open for pre-shoppers and other fools.

We purchased coffee and a breakfast of sorts and sat back to try and enjoy it. Next to us, guarding the door, turning away customers with a gruff “The shop doesna open till 11″ was a very scary woman. With a massive bunch of keys, reminiscent of the gate keeper in Macbeth and a tattoo that spread down her right shoulder with butterflies emerging from a thorny forest and a persistent sniff, she stood, then sat and made it very clear that people were not welcome for another 30 minutes. I do wonder what her normal job is at BHS. Bouncer perhaps? Security during the more riotous sales? Whatever, she was pretty scary.

We finally hopped aboard the talking tourist bus for the circuitous trip up to the Old Town. Neither of us remembered our earplugs so we were spared more repetition from the chatty bus. The weather being much better meant we sat outside up the top rather than under the shelter. The tourists with us were all very well behaved even when we were joined by the Dr Who monster pretending to be a human. We left the bus at the top of Old Town directly outside Gladstone Land.

Now, Gladstone Land isn’t a Disney world full of doctor’s bags or old prime ministers. The word ‘land’, in the context of Edinburgh’s Old Town, means the buildings erected on the plots of ground called ‘tenements’ along King’s High Street. Everywhere else, the tenement was the building and the land was the ground but, hey, that’s history. Of course, this shouldn’t be confused with the use of the word ‘land’ to mean all manner of local goods as sold at the Lawnmarket, which was originally the Land Market. Also the person’s name was not Gladstone but Gledstane. The property is in the hands of the National Trust of Scotland and is a companion property to the Georgian House in the New Town. Why it’s not called Gledstane’s Land, I can’t explain.

Looking up at Gladstones Land on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh old town

As an example of middle to upper class living conditions in the Old Town just before the move to designing and building the New Town, Gladstone’s Land is excellent. And you can see why they (they being the powers that be, of course) decided it would be a great idea. Cramped into an, albeit large, living area over three floors with two rooms per floor even with the painted ceiling were not as ideal as the mansions over in Charlotte Square.

It’s important to remember that while the people had someone to pick up their waste every day, it was still a time of people emptying their chamber pots out the window and onto the street below. It doesn’t bear imagining what effect it would have on a successful gentleman, setting out for a business meeting, and ending up with some foul mess all over his nice suit. Quite apart from the stench in the street!

As we wandered around, we were struck by two little girls answering the kid’s questions. I don’t mean the two little girls hit us. Their dad would ask them the question and they would eagerly give it a shot. At one stage, one of them leapt onto an antique chair, in order to get a good look out the window. The room warden leapt just as fast to tell her not to climb on the chairs with a “That chair is 400 years old! How would you like it if you were 400 years old and had a small child jumping onto you?” I didn’t hear her response but most little kids would say “I wouldn’t mind,” I’m sure.

A little later, the girls were asked whether an instrument in one of the rooms was a piano, an organ or a spinet. The elder of the girls quickly answered ‘spinet’, to which the room warden said “All the little children are so smart, they all get that right! I wouldn’t have a clue what a spinet was!” Poor kid. There she was thinking she was clever when she’s just the same as every other kid that visits Gladstone’s Land.

A few years ago, Mirinda directed her first play. It was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. In it, Jean declares that she is descended from Deacon Brodie, who was hung from a gallows of his own making. At the time, we thought this was just an invention by Muriel Spark, but no, it seems it wasn’t. Deacon Brodie did, in fact, exist in the same way that Jean Brodie didn’t.

He was a Deacon of Cabinet Makers and had a passion for gambling and women. In order to sustain these passions, he would rob the businesses he visited during the day. Eventually things became decidedly hot in Edinburgh for William Brodie and he left for Amsterdam. According to the bus, he wrote back home, giving a forwarding address, which led to his arrest but I haven’t found another reference to this so it could be just a tad made up.

Entrance to Deacon Brodie's cafe, Royal Mile, Edinburgh Old Town

Sent back to Edinburgh he was sentenced to death by hanging. Being pretty inventive, he designed a contraption to wear under his clothes which, he claimed, would cheat the hangman’s noose. It didn’t work and possibly the last thing he saw was the maker’s mark on the gallows, which read “William Brodie, Edinburgh”.

His workshop is now a café, decorated with a mural that circles the room. Robert Louis Stevenson often sat here and, it is rumoured, based Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on Brodie. We sat there and had morning tea. The woman at the counter was very cheery and loud. The ham sandwiches were lovely, the coffee foul as café coffee is generally.

We really wanted to visit the real Mary King’s Close (get in free if you can prove your surname is King), which is part of the underground area of the Old Town. We wandered into the shop and asked for tickets only to be told that the next available tour was at 6:40pm! We decided not to hang around and laughed in her face, leaving swiftly without even a glance at the tourist tat on display.

Instead we popped into St Giles’ Cathedral. Fortunately whatever had been on (I think it was something to do with Easter) had just finished so we joined the throngs of tourists who wanted to see the place rather than worship at it.

Originally the church was founded in around 1124. It was set on fire by the army of Richard II in 1385 after which they rebuilt it in stone. John Knox was the minister there from 1559 and there were riots when someone tried to introduce a new prayer book in 1637.

Between 1909 and 1911 the thistle chapel was built. This chapel is truly beautiful. It is the chapel of the Knights of the Thistle. Back in 1687, James VII revived the order and built them a chapel in Holyrood Abbey but the people weren’t that keen on his Catholic leanings so they ransacked the place and left the poor knights without a place to call their own. Fast forward over 200 years and here we have it, in St Giles.

The thistle chapel, St Giles, Royal Mile, Edinburgh Old Town

The knights dress in rather colourful tabards and big natty hats once a year on St Andrew’s Day and stand in it for a service. The rest of the year, tourists take photos and donate a couple of quid for its upkeep.

St Giles’ was not a favourite of Dr Samuel Johnson. Apparently he remarked in 1773, “Come, let me see what was once a church” while visiting Edinburgh. It was in a pretty dire sort of state but soon picked up with the Georgian revival of Edinburgh.

We stopped for a long half of cider at the World’s End pub. This was where the city walls started back in the middle ages. A nice, old, pokey-hole pub with good beer and cider that can take an hour to drink. If you’re Mirinda, that is. We sat and sipped for an hour.

On the way down the Royal Mile, we came across the Old Children’s Bookshelf, a bookshop that specialises in children’s books, although the name of the shop implies it specialises in old children. And a wonderful world of whimsy it is. Mirinda spent a goodly amount of time inspecting the Dimsey books, of which this shop had the whole set. They were priced rather high. Though the highest I found was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at £45 and it was a reprint and not a first edition! Unusually, we didn’t buy anything but continued walking.

We gradually walked to Holyroodhouse and wandered into some of the closes which, apparently, are supposed to be quaint and pretty. Well, the ones we wandered down certainly weren’t! As you leave the Royal Mile, through the historic iron gates (which used to be locked after dark), most of the time you are confronted with 1960s housing estates. To be fair, this is down near the Scottish parliament building rather than closer to the top.

When we arrived at Holyrood, we decided something healthy to eat was in order. We had salmon and salad. This is how it was advertised. I’d really like to know what the word ‘salad’ actually means. As far as catering is concerned. Here, at Holyrood, it means two different types of lettuce and vinaigrette. It was lovely, just a tad misleading.

The strange thing about the Holyroodhouse tour is that each person has their own talking stick. Ok, that’s not strange but it is when you wander from room to room and you can hear nothing but faint footsteps because everyone is listening intently to the soft commentary. Almost eerie, it is.

This is where the Queen lives when she visits Edinburgh. It is on the site of what was originally an Augustinian monastery, the ruins of which are visited at the end of the tour. This was built sometime around 1128 during the reign of David I. Royal chambers were included in the abbey to encourage royal visitors and, eventually, James IV decided to convert the lodgings into a palace when he needed somewhere to carry his bride across the threshold. He married Margaret Tudor (daughter of Henry VII & sister of Henry VIII) and the palace was completed in 1504. There’s virtually nothing left of this early palace however, changes made by James V from 1528 are still there.

Holyroodhouse Abbey behind Holyroodhouse Palace, Edinburgh

By far the most interesting part is upstairs in the apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots. The murder of Rizzio, her marriages to Darnley and Hepburn, her miserable life leading up to her leaving Scotland to remain in captivity in England until her execution by Elizabeth I. Boy, really makes you want to be a part of the royal family, doesn’t it.

When the Abbey Church was up and running, it was actually used to bury lots of important, royal people. James II, David II, James V and his wife Madeleine of Valois and, naturally, Lord Darnley. Of course, after the Reformation and other raids, the remains were ‘violated’ and the monuments smashed. Then someone collected all the bits of the royals and had them reburied in the Royal Vault. Strange…but true.

I fully recommend the guide book which has a comprehensive history of the palace as it went from family to family, monarch to monarch.

After catching a normal bus back to Waverley Bridge we wandered back to hotel and watched Ghostbusters. We decided to partake, once more, of the excellent food in the hotel restaurant, mainly because we couldn’t be bothered leaving the hotel.

Now I think I know why they only have one AA rosette. Having ordered our food, I asked for a bottle of wine from the wine menu and was told that there probably wouldn’t be any because it was a Sunday. The waitress went off to see. I thought this was odd. Did they send wine over to the church for Sunday communion, perhaps? She returned with the news that, no, they didn’t have the wine I wanted. I ordered another…and another…and another. She kept saying it was because the wine was generally gone by Sunday. I had arrived at the stage where wine just wasn’t necessary and we’d make do with water, when she produced a bottle of Chianti. In retrospect, she could have just told us what they had and I could have picked from that! I don’t think they have a wine cellar, just a collection of wine for each week that arrives on a Monday. Still, the food was superb.

It was a close call, but we just managed to get back to our room in time for Desperate Housewives. And because we have E4 in our room, it was two episodes back to back. Of course this means we’re one ahead of ourselves, which is annoying, but it was most enjoyable. And then, sleep.

I realised I’ve been remiss on my bathroom comments. That is because all was well. Water hot enough, pressure great, controls easy to understand. But wait! There was one, tiny, odd thing. The hot tap at the sink turns the wrong way! It is very odd. I am not the only person to try and wrench it the normal way as the tap is quite loose. I’m not sure if all hot taps in Scotland (or Edinburgh) turn in the opposite direction to the cold tap or whether it’s just the Royal Terrace Hotel…or, indeed, just room 512.

A late start to today as Mirinda had to make a work call which, in her own words, didn’t really achieve anything. We left the hotel at about 11 after a very decent sleep in. We wandered over to Queen Street, passing the statue of Sherlock Holmes. Apparently Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, not far from where the statue stands. There is also a Conan Doyle pub across the road. Mirinda likes the statue because she feels she understands everything about it. I think that’s just because she knows Sherlock Holmes, as she had no idea what the leek meant.

We managed to get as far as Hanover Street before Mirinda decided to go and look in a shop. I was despatched off to Starbucks to stare at George IV. I do not like shopping. I’m also not that keen on sitting for an hour in a coffee shop when I could be exploring. Obviously I was in trouble for going wandering and not being at Starbucks when Mirinda had finished her hours not-buying-anything shopping. In defiance, I managed to buy a raincoat later in the day in about 10 minutes, five of which were waiting for someone to serve me.

Statue of George IV in Hanover Street, Edinburgh

We then wandered down to Charlotte Square and to number 7, to be precise. This is the National trust of Scotland’s Georgian House.

Prior to 1766, everyone in Edinburgh mucked in, in the Old Town as the New Town did not yet exist. The rich, the poor, the clean, the filthy, the plague-ridden, all of them lived amongst the slops thrown from windows and the filthy streets of horse manure. The town council of Edinburgh decided to improve things by promoting the building of a New Town. To this end they held a competition for designs and ideas from the great and the good. The winner was a young architect called James Craig.

Craig’s plan was for two squares (Charlotte and St Andrew’s) joined by parallel roads (Princes and Queens). Then other architects went mad and designed all sorts of buildings. This meant that the New Town was going to wind up being a bit of a mish mash of designs. The Town Council, therefore, approached Robert Adam (famous Scottish architect) to design the entire façade of Charlotte Square so it would remain a harmonious whole. This happened and Charlotte Square is, indeed, harmonious. There’s even a lovely grassy area in the centre that appears unmarred by human beings.

Number 7 was initially owned by John Lamont, his wife Helen and their five children. Of course, being a ‘gentlemen’ and having to keep up appearances, poor John was forced to live beyond his means and ended up having to eventually sell the property in 1815 having owned it for nine years. It then went through four more owners before the Trust took over in 1966.

It’s quite a nice house, reminiscent of Number 1, The Royal Crescent in Bath, and seems to have been quite comfortable. I say ‘seems’ because there was no running water, (obviously) no electricity and generally unheated rooms. The water would have been the worst thing. It was delivered to the house in barrels each day. Basically having a daily wash meant a little splash of cold water to either cheek then a very generous application of perfume. And that was the toffs. The servants just stayed smelly.

The first part of the tour of the Georgian House consists of a 15 minute film which highlights both the history of the house and the Lamont’s living conditions. Sometimes these video presentations are a bit dire but this one was excellent. After this we wandered around each of the rooms, gradually working our way from the basement to the second floor then back again. Definitely an excellent choice…if you like that sort of thing.

After a brief stop at a National Trust teashop for the requisite cream tea and/or Victoria sponge, we wandered back up towards Waverley Bridge. At the moment, Edinburgh is undergoing a big change. A tram system is being constructed which will travel along Princes and Queen streets. This means that most of New Town is a big mess of hoardings, crash barriers and restrictive dead ends. This is supposed to continue until the trams commence running in 2011. Being a big fan of trams, I reckon this is an excellent idea. However, the place is such a mess that I don’t think we’ll bother returning to Edinburgh before it is finished! Oddly, they had trains in Edinburgh once before but removed them.

The rain had started with a vicious wind whipping it up so we decided to buy a 24 hour ticket for a hop on/hop off tourist bus which took us all around the Old Town. It is always an excellent way to see a new city. We also learnt (we heard it three times) about the man who lent his name to Listerine and the first female doctor who had spent years pretending to be a man. It wasn’t until he/she died that someone realised, on her original application to join the medical corps, that her name was Miranda. She’d also had a few kids. I’d like to learn more about James Miranda Barry! And, obviously, I looked her up. It’s uncertain if she was a female or not but if so, she was the first female to qualify as a medical doctor in Britain. Her name was not Miranda! Most believe she was born Margaret Ann Bulkley and lived as a man so that she could go to university and become a doctor. He/she died in 1865 and, apparently, the charwoman discovered the gender secret. She told everyone AFTER the funeral. While very successful in the army as a surgeon and afterwards as Surgeon General, he did once get into an argument with Florence Nightingale. The name ‘James Miranda Barry’ appears to have come from a historical novel of the same name.

At the end of our bus ride, and back at Waverley Bridge, I left Mirinda at Costa’s while I went in search of tea, coffee, milk and sugar. There is a lovely shopping mall at the bridge however it only sells useless stuff and not essentials like food. I ended up walking down to the station and popping into M&S for stupid Fairtrade stuff. I’m not sure how fair it is buying sugar from Malawi when Tate & Lyle operates out of Norfolk where they grow English sugar beet. I guess they think it’s pretty damn fair in Malawi.

Then it was but a short stroll back up the hill to the hotel for an early evening rest and check of the football results. Chelsea won and Aldershot lost.

For dinner tonight, Mirinda forced me to go to an Indian restaurant that did not sell beer. I didn’t think such a thing existed. The two things are synonymous. Very odd. The restaurant is called Zaara and, although the food is excellent, the waitress is a bit dour and it seems that on a Saturday night, it is only popular with females and poor husbands dragged there by their wives. And there’s no beer.

Up and out by 9 so Mirinda could get a train to Livingston for a meeting – the secondary reason for our visit. A short walk to Waverley station, a bagel breakfast and Costa coffee and then she was gone. Meanwhile, I had planned a Gazday Special. Hold on to your hats and prepare to be bored as we see Edinburgh through the eyes of someone who likes to look at dull, uninteresting things.

My first stop was the National Museum of Scotland. This is a very modern looking building with an amazing layout inside. I didn’t manage to get further than the lower ground and ground floors, they were so packed with interesting things. I’ll not go too far into the rocks and fossils except to say that the landscape of Edinburgh was formed by the same volcano that created Calton Hill. That’s it for the rocks. It was actually really interesting but I shall leave my readers wanting more…”yeah, right,” I can hear Mirinda saying.

Roman cavalry helmets in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

Throughout the lower ground floor of the museum is a massive display of the people of Scotland from 8000BC to AD1100. According to the museum guide there is over 5,000 objects on display! I’m pretty sure I didn’t see quite all of them. They have a splendid collection of Roman artefacts including some beautiful decorated Samianware which had me drooling. I know at least two weasels who would have loved to have dug them up. Better than an Anglo-Saxon pin!

Right down the bottom, against one wall with a nicely padded bench opposite, is a video display, which was excellent. It is made up of three big flat screen TVs and a series of images move from left to right across them. Each image is a drawing of a period of Scottish occupation. They change slightly as the ages pass. The images are concerned with how people lived so there’s an evolution of building construction as well as farming methods. Well worth sitting through. Sadly, I haven’t really explained it well enough. It was excellent.

On the ground floor is a disparate grouping of Scottish artefacts from a copy of mary Queen of Scots’ effigy in Westminster Abbey to the original Lewis chess pieces (which look EXACTLY like the resin ones I have) to the Maiden! The Maiden is a Scottish version of the guillotine. Amazingly portable, efficiently deadly. Apparently beheading by the axe was not seen as very efficient – sometimes it took a few chops for a start – and a better method was required. The Scots being canny, decided not to build lots of them all over the place but, rather, make a portable one that could go where they wanted. It was very clever and reduced down to just three bits. It was also, by all accounts, very, very good at its job.

Leaving the museum (after two hours) I popped over the road with the intention of visiting Greyfriar’s Church. Naturally I stood and admired Greyfriar’s Bobby, sitting at in the middle of the footpath between two roads, queuing to take a photo. Across the road and through the ornate gates, stands the Greyfriar’s Kirk. The little grave that the little dog slept at for 14 years is just as you enter, right after you pass the ‘Eerie Wee Shop in the Graveyard’, which was closed.

Greyfriar's Bobby, Edinburgh

I wandered around the graveyard for a bit then entered the church. I then very quickly exited the church as there was a rehearsal on for something. Next Sunday’s service, maybe? There was a lot of people sitting down is all I can say. There was nothing for it but to pop into the Greyfriar’s Bobby’s Pub, just outside the church gates. I settled into a lovely booth in the window and had a pint of Caledonian, a beer I remember well from the beer festivals they regularly hold at Ember’s Inns in Woking.

An interesting story from the Greyfriar’s Bobby’s Bar. It is built at the end of a group of buildings called Candlemaker’s Row. This is an entire street, full of candle makers. Anyway, at one stage, when the boundaries of the town were laid out, this Candlemaker’s Row was put just the other side of the city walls because no-one living in the timber framed houses of the time, was particularly keen on living next to such flammable neighbours.

My next stop was to be the highlight of my non-Mirinda day: The Scotch Whisky Experience. What a fantastic place! It’s a lot like the Jorvik Centre in York except, rather than travelling through the gradually changing city of York, we sat in half oak barrels and travel through the distilling process of whisky! While interesting, obviously, the highlight is the ghost of the Master Blender who pops up all over the place and tells you about the process as it happens. The actor playing him is very good! Unless it was a real ghost…

Having travelled through the process just like a grain of barley, we were then taken to a room where we sat and received a talk from a lovely Scottish chappie. He told us about blended and malt whiskies and why they taste as they do and where they all come from. He threw the statistic out that a bottle of Johnnie Walker red is sold somewhere in the world every 3 seconds. Not sure how they work that one out. We were then given four bottles, each filled with cotton wool and are asked to guess what they smell of. They range from citrus to wood smoke and signify the four different whisky producing regions of Scotland.

And then the good bit. Before each of us is placed two nosing and tasting glasses. The chappie pours a measure of blended whisky into one of them. We are then instructed through the process of looking at it, swirling it to inspect it’s ‘legs’, having a couple of good sniffs to detect any hints of subtle flavour then, finally, to taste. The blended was a McCallums and not bad, though definitely the sort of spirit I’d have soda water with. Next came the malt. What a difference! No soda with this one. A lovely Speyside malt…the distillery escapes me as I sit and type but it was very nice!

Having finished off our samples, we were given the glasses as a token and shown the way down to the bar where we could sample more whisky at £2.50 a glass. I was rather taken with the idea of a nutty malt from the Highlands and tasted a 12 year old Fettercairn. It was very nice. I then bought a bottle in the whisky shop. I also bought Nick a small bottle of Auchentoshan 18 year old because the full bottle was very expensive.

I then took a big detour via the hotel to dump my various purchases before setting out once more for the Royal Mile in search of food. On the way I stopped off in the Calton Hill Cemetery to check out David Hume’s grave – pretty impressive I must say though, oddly, shared with a bunch of other people. Also, the monument to the Americans with a rather serious looking Abe Lincoln on top was a bit odd. Though maybe not…who knows?

Overcome with a desire to see Greyfriar’s Kirk, I decided to lunch in the pub where I’d had a beer earlier. A lovely plate of gammon and eggs and pint of Caledonian later and I went up to the church to find…it was locked up tight. Obviously they didn’t want me to see it! Disappointed but unfazed, I decided to wander round the Royal Mile a bit. I ended up at Starbucks for my usual – the girl had no idea what my ‘usual’ was so I had to give the full order. Mind you, she was Schumanian. Actually, that is odd. There are an awful lot of Schumanians working and, I assume, living in Edinburgh.

While sitting in Starbucks thinking on this and reading some of the tourist bumfph I’d picked up, I came across a piece of news that gladdened my heart. Apparently it is possible to climb the Scott Monument! I hurriedly gulped down my latte and ran down the road, across Waverley Bridge and skidded to a halt outside the little wooden door to the monument. My luck was seriously not going very well! The place was empty. No-one anywhere…actually that’s a lie. A jolly Scot took my £3 and showed me the stairs.

287 stairs to be exact. Up a very narrow, spiral staircase. I climbed the lot. But what fantastic views. 360º views. Totally amazing. The height to the top of the finial is 200ft 6in which, in new money is 61.1m. I think it sounds more of an achievement in imperial. It took about four years to build, completed in 1844 and cost £16,154 7s 11d, which was a lot of money back then! Actually, it’s not bad right now. I felt like the King of Edinburgh up there. I didn’t even mind the tight squeeze when people were on the way up as I was on the way down. I just told them they had a very long way to go. It was 287 stairs coming down, as well.

Jenners, Princes Street, Edinburgh, from the top of the Scott Monument

I was, having wound myself down the monument, pretty bushed so I decided to head back to the hotel and wait for Mirinda to call to say she was on her way back. Which I did and which she did. When I left the hotel, the fog had returned. According to someone at Livingston, this happens often and it rolls off the sea. Whatever it is, it’s quite weird to go into a hotel with the sky blue and seeing for miles then come out about an hour later and it’s white and you can’t see a thing.

Anyway, we managed to get home, feeling our way along the walls, and had room service for dinner and watched Madagascar II – Mirinda’s choice.

Mirinda reports that, according to the folk at Livingston, we were insane to go to Calton Hill as it’s known as a disgusting place full of drunks and drug addicts.

Up early to pack and get the dogs off to the kennels, then a long, painful journey into the station with a gammy-legged suitcase with only one wheel. Like dragging a dead body, it was. As we boarded the 9:58 from Farnham, Mirinda and I parted company as she went and sat in the first class section of the train. This is not because she’s some sort of stranger snob but, rather, because she had work to do – it is, after all, a working day. I settled into the frankly inadequate seat and read and snoozed into Waterloo.

Next we hit the Tube which, thankfully, was running smoothly even with the hordes of protesters carrying on around the streets of London in recognition of the usefulness of the G20 talks. Note I’m being just a tad sarcastic there. Change at Warren Street, then to Kings Cross. Half an hour to stand around and wait for a platform. Then all aboard the National Express train to Inverness.

Mirinda not exactly enthused by the seats. Because we booked so late, the first class seats cost as much as our house, so we had to make do with the other smelly plebs in cattle class. Not bad…the train has free wifi and Mirinda and I sat back at our table seat and typed away like crazy fools. Me on my new book, she doing work.

It’s remarkable the number of people who are using laptops on this train. I guess they must mostly be business people – not many of the obvious tourists have one – but it’s interesting that most use them now.

Something I’ll never understand, and excuse me if I’ve already ranted about this, is the way train guards make announcements over and over when no-one has left or joined the train. We had a delay because of a stalled train in Grantham – not ours, I hasten to add – and we had the usual announcement regarding this and explaining that was why we were stood by a field looking at a bunch of lonely looking cows. All well and good and nice to know there was a reason for us to be there. The trouble was, this guy repeated the same information a number of times over the next hour. Both while we sat there and after we’d managed to drive clear. I’m not sure who the final announcements were for as we’d all heard them more times that sanity demands. We hadn’t stopped at a station. I’m assuming no-one had been born or beamed down from orbit. Odd.

The day we travelled through was gorgeous and blue and I hope it doesn’t mean we’ll get nothing but rain while we’re in Scotland.

We arrived only ten minutes late and, given the stopping and starting a couple of times, that’s pretty good. We joined the throng half leaving half arriving at Waverley station and made our way to the taxi rank. And then, the Royal Terrace Hotel.

Very nice! I think the good deal we managed to get was because the outside of the hotel is completely covered with scaffolding. Not bothered! Our room is called Glenkinchie, after the distillery. The bed is comfortable, the TV is a great size with lots of English speaking channels, the bathroom is lovely. Excellent! Though almost a bit short-lived. I’d originally booked it starting from tomorrow. Mirinda was starting to seethe, thinking we’d be sleeping on the street but she soon calmed down when the helpful receptionist just added a night onto our booking.

We settled into our lovely room with a coffee/tea and complimentary shortbread and flicked through the TV options. We then booked a time for dinner in the restaurant downstairs before going for a walk.

Just behind the hotel is Calton Hill. This was a volcano around 300 million years ago. It spewed forth lava, which turned into rocks. The rocks were scoured away by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age (15-20,000 years ago) leaving the hill we see today. During the 1700s it was a great spot to visit. David Hume, the philosopher loved it so much he made a permanent path, which, incidentally, is one of the oldest public paths in Britain.

Memorial on top of Calton Hill, Edinburgh

The path leading up to the first level of the hill is incredibly steep! We were both amazed by Mirinda’s resilience in reaching the top. But she did!

At the top is a strange collection of Greek styled follies. One, a half hearted attempt at the Parthenon, was described as Edinburgh’s Disgrace at one stage. It now appears to be an open air theatre for Scottish drunks who sing with all the charm of fingernails down a blackboard and a lot more volume. It’s rather odd when the early evening air is being taken by tourists and locals with their dogs and in the middle stand a quartet of old soaks, one of them singing his heart out to some unintelligible rubbish. Things rapidly went down hill when we realised the way we were leaving the hill seems to be the local toilet. A pity the glaciers didn’t scour the disgusting and the anti-social as well. It could have ruined an otherwise lovely evening but we didn’t let it. We returned to the room so Mirinda could relax in the bath.

Had a fantastic dinner in the hotel restaurant. They have one AA rosette but I think that could easily be doubled. Food was fantastic, presentation, top class. An interesting group beside us at a very long table of 14 girls and only two guys. Not sure whether I should congratulate or commiserate with them both.

After dinner we had a short stroll along the road then back to the room where I tried to open one of the huge windows. The windows in our room are huge aluminium sash jobbies, which sit behind the old Georgian versions on the outside. The new ones tend to slide up and down like a guillotine. Believe me, I’m not exaggerating. While trying to hold the window open, I almost lost the fingers of my left hand! I’m sure my wedding ring was all that saved them. As it is, a huge blood blister formed at the base of my ring finger. There was lots of blood and I spent the night with an old t-shirt wrapped around my hand.