Edinburgh

I went to Edinburgh yesterday. I really love that city. Actually, what I really love about it is the park in the centre, the one near Waverly station, which the castle overlooks. Definitely in my top 5 parks :)
My friend was late (well, we hadn't agreed on a time, but I was aiming for 11-ish, and due to long car journeys, out of centre parking, and neither us knowing the place very well, we didn't meet up til 2.30. She's still amazing for driving all that way), so I spent a couple of hours exploring, reading in the park, and then in a coffee shop when it got too windy. There was an amazing display of unusual road signs in and around one of the shopping centres - 'Beware of Invisibility', 'Please check under your car for Penguins' etc etc. After we met up, we got pasties from the station (though annoyingly they'd given me a pizza one instead of steak and stilton - guess you can't really check with a pasty), and headed back to the park to eat. We had ice cream too, and a giggle. Then we decided we wanted to see a show, though our limited time meant we didn't have much choice of what to see . . . in the end we got some very cheap tickets for a cabaret act. But we had to put some money in the metre at the car park first, and by the time we'd dashed there, we thought we'd better drive back . . . and then we couldn't find anywhere to park. So we missed it, but I don't think either of us were too devastated - there's always next year.
Instead we headed off to Arthur's Seat. We didn't go right to the top, just for a walk on one of the lower levels - the view was stunnng though. I'd never realised how close Ed was to the sea. Which of course meant that, after inspecting the bizzare Scottish parliament building, we headed for the sea itself, or at least a drive along it. And then to the chippy :)
The drive back was fun - music a-blaring, and sat-nav at the ready- though we also drove through one of the worst rain storms I've ever seen, which was pretty scary. After much pondering my friend did stay over, getting up at 5am to head back home to work.

Today was pretty boring. Only thing I did of note was to watch Empire Strikes Back for the first time in years. Still a brilliant movie, even if Trek currently has a stronger grip on my sci-fi affections.