So, at some point mid-morning, Claire and I hoofed it down to the bus station and hopped on a coach back to Edinburgh. We arrived around lunch time and were informed by our bellies that food was a priority, so I made a beeline for a hill containing an awfully steep and agonisingly long set of stairs, but housing a lovely cafe at the top. I knew I had been there quite a few times by this point but when the staff recognised me and greeted me by name, Claire was no doubt starting to wonder just how much time I had spent sitting in a cafe the previous weekend...
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| The Scott Monument |
Having silenced our growling stomachs we decided to climb up the Scott Monument. It only cost £4 to go up, and has an amazing view of the city. Good thing, too. Once you've puffed and
fought your way up the increasingly narrow spiral
staircases, emerging triumphant at the very top to force yourself onto the sardine can that is the landing, which is holding at least
three times as many people on it as can actually fit - there's no going back
down.
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| Views from the top of the Scott Monument |
Picture, if you will, the circular landing around that very top spire, packed so full of people that bits of them are poking out between the bars. They have just climbed 287 steps to get up here, bare in mind. Now imagine the combined hilarity and panic when someone says "excuse me please, I'd like to go down" from the side of the landing furthest from the only door.
Much snarling and gnashing of teeth ensues as the entire mass starts to rotate around the spire, until eventually the person needing to exit makes it back around to the door. Not somewhere to go if you've got personal space issues or a fear of
heights.
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| View from the top, all 200 feet of it... |
So, having just walked up 287 steps, Claire graciously let me convince her
that walking up Arthur's Seat with her lack of jacket and my lack of two
functioning feet (my right foot ceased to function several weeks ago) was an
excellent idea. Up we went. It was quite a long walk since I was, for all
intents and purposes, semi-lame; but we got there and wow, what a view. And
what a wind!
While we were up there I noticed a fair few iron loops hammered into the
rock, all of which had padlocks clipped on them. Since there was no chance of
King Arthur coming along, the loops looked incredibly happy to be there,
anchored in stone, and I can only guess they were for attaching something to
the hill (perhaps yourself, given the wind), and that people were trying to
start another padlock trend.
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| The mysterious padlock trend... |
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| Seriously windy! But a great view of the city. |
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| More views from Arthur's Seat |
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| Another iron loop. Not exactly a sword, but certainly not going anywhere. |
On Sunday we would head back to Glasgow via Stirling Castle. We stopped
off at a cafe for breakfast, which turned out to be the most entertaining
breakfast I myself have ever experienced. I ordered the 'yoghurt and granola'
and also a croissant, since usually the granola-yoghurt combo is served in a
small glass or ramekin, and I was starved.
As you can imagine, I was very confused when I was presented with an
entire cereal bowl full - to the brim - of granola, and a tiny milk jug full of
yoghurt. Now imagine my confusion when I was given a large soup spoon to eat it
with. To be fair, I was going to need a shovel to get through all the granola,
so I could sort of understand the giant spoon; but for my first meal of the
day, when my mouth has only just figured out what to do with itself, the last thing I need is a wider one.
So, I
asked for a dessert spoon. The waitress explained, very apologetically, that
they did not have dessert spoons, only soup spoons or teaspoons. Since if I
switched to a teaspoon we were likely to be there for the next decade, I opted
to stick with the soup spoon.
Now let's ponder this for a minute. In the event that you are running a cafe and are forced to choose between soup
spoons and dessert spoons, and 'soup of the day' does not feature on
your menu, whereas cake and granola do, why in heaven's name you would choose the soup spoons?
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| The Granola/yoghurt/honey combo... as combined as it would ever be! |
Anyway, not to be daunted, I dug around in the bowl for a brief
moment wondering if perhaps there was more yoghurt underneath and the little jug
I had been given was in fact extra. But no. A recurring question between us for the next week was, "would you like some yoghurt with that granola?" Well yes actually, I would. Not to worry though, they gave me an equal portion of honey (in a nice accessible ramekin dish, curiously).
It was at this point that I discovered the soup spoon was too big to fit
in the tiny jug to get the yoghurt out, so I was reduced to inverting the
jug and attempting to launch the contents onto my granola by way of force.
Having unceremoniously dumped as much of it onto my cereal as I was ever going to and added the honey, it became apparent that I would now be requiring a cement -mixer. Claire had long ago finished her breakfast and could no longer look at my plight without dissolving into fits of giggles, and I was just about crying with laughter myself. Who would have imagined such a deliciously simple breakfast could be made so complex? What a hoot.
That's fantastic Jess. It looks like if nothing else you will be fit! Those scenes are breath-taking.
ReplyDeleteKeep the blog going!