Rosie and I are in Edinburgh! We first flew 11 hours with Qatar Airlines to Doha. Great airline. But 11 hours sitting in a long metal tube hurtling through the skies is never going to be a restful experience. Everything hurts physically after a few hours. My tailbone from sitting on it, every vertebrae in my spine, my head from the tight shoulder muscles.  I feel such a whiner when I know how blessed I really am to have these opportunities. But the body still aches and protests!  Rosie and I tried out some homeopathic Jetlag tablets and I think they’re helping.  I also decided not to have much screen time while flying. Instead I listened to a lot of music with an eye mask on and I think I slept more than I normally do

Flying in to Doha soon after sunrise we looked down at flat, brown endless sand plains. And I used to think Perth was flat!  Couldn’t even see the horizon which was shrouded in an orange-brown long smudge. Not sure if it was smog or sand. It wasn’t until we flew out that I saw through the plane windows the sparkling, shiny rows of highrise buildings of the city perched on the edges of the wide ocean.  In the Doha airport terminal our first sight was this.

And then round the corner was a huge statue of a big yellow teddy bear. I think that was for waiting tourists to have their photo taken in front of it.  It was certainly working.   After a few hours in the Doha terminal, we flew on for another 7 hours straight to Edinburgh.  (It was only last year that James learnt that “Edinburgh” is really “Edinborough”.)  It was strange that this flight seemed as long as the first one – probably because I was so tired. Dropping down through the thick clouds over the city, it was to see green, green, green and more green! Such a stark contrast. Green grass everywhere and wide bands of dark green trees and lots of hills.   After a long wait for my bag to appear on the carousel, and a mixup at finding John (a friend of Rosie’s whose hospitality we’re enjoying in Edinburgh), we drove through the green fields high with white lacey cow parsley and bordered by lush, dark green trees and on into Edinburgh.

A city of charm and elegance, houses of grey stone and long narrow windows. Didn’t see any high rise buildings at all. Lots of parks and trees. And have I mentioned all the greenery?!   John is actually English – and will never be considered a Scot, he told me, because you would have to be born here to be a real Scot. But he is allowed to vote in the upcoming referendum about Scottish independence which is being hotly debated here with strong arguments for both sides. His house is a tall, narrow Victorian building in the old suburb of Portobello. After he bought it he found lots of problems with dry rot, so he’s been working on the house for quite a while – and will be so for a long time yet. So its full of stuff and building materials piled everywhere with a thick layer of dust. I sympathise after my recent bout of kitchen renovations. He is ovewhelmingly gracious and hospitable.

John’s house in Edinburgh is the right top half of this building.

Rosie and I are sharing a bed in the top of the house. He wanted to give up his bed for us and he would sleep on the couch. But we vetoed that, and insisted we could share a bed.   To get some fresh air into our systems, he took us for a walk along the nearby “beach”. Before World War 2, Portobello was very fashionable but it’s now a little faded and living on past glories.

Portobello beach

There’s a wide promenade of red patched bitumen in front of the stone buildings fronting the ocean, which is really an estuary, with people and their dogs and prams walking up and down. The sand is coarse, orange-brown, and the stiff breeze whipped up the water.

There were a few hardy souls, wearing wetsuits, having a swim!   The most interesting sight we saw on the beach was a little white tent that had had been pitched there for months by a local eccentric. Inside this tent where he lives is a piano and as we walked past we could hear him playing “Auld Lang Syne” and written on the tent flap was “The Party Lives On”.

The original Piano Man

I went to church with John to his church, Charlotte Chapel in the city. It was just as I imagined an old Baptist church in Britain to look like – pews, a balcony running round the edges and high pulpit at the front. They were very warm and welcoming. Rosie didn’t come as by this time she was starting to lose her balance with jetlag.

This morning we’ve woken up to sunshine and blue skies. We slept well in a very comfortable bed but woke early at 5am. We went to bed with the sun still up and when we woke up the sun was still shining! John doesn’t have curtains on his windows, so he’s hung a red sheet there. We’re planning on an easy day today. While I’ve been writing this, Rosie has been sorting out phones, although ‘wrestling’ would probably be a better word, because of the frustrations she’s going through. It’s going to be a lovely day!

Rosie microwaving eggs for breakfast – there’s no working oven or cooktop

You can tell this is a Blog in a Fog, because I’m tired and I’m burbling and don’t know when to stop writing!