Monthly Archives: April 2004

Edinburgh in the wet

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I had another whole week in Edinburgh, and back into the Apex International on Grassmarket, so have been able to add to my duck collection.  Grassmarket was designated by Edinburgh University as one of several areas of Edinburgh, students should stay clear of for fear of muggings.

Plane left on time from Birmingham, I arrived in Edinburgh and went to work.  After work went to the Petit Paris for an early meal of leek salad, think of a lettuce salad with bacon bits and dressing.  Replace the lettuce with cooked leek   Next the Plat de Jour of Toulouse sausage and lentils, finished off with a crepe citron.  The rest of the evening was spent waiting for a call from a colleague who was up for the user day on Tuesday.  No call, so read several chapters of Rebus.

Tuesday, work is looking up, spent much of the day in the Sand Pit.  Missed the Plat de Jour at Petit Paris, so the more expensive main course meaning I had to miss out on the Pichet of red wine, instead opting for an Absinthe as a pre-prandial drink.  Elected for the very tasty Chevre Chaud in filo pastry, and then a Lamb Steak.  As I was finishing my meal I saw some colleagues of mine in the street, so dragged them into the restaurant where they were able to purchase me some wine.

Wednesday it was out for a curry at Zest with Iain from Standard Life, and Joe a contractor from HBOS.  It was then on for a few more beers.

Thursday, slow start to the day, wet miserable day.  Felt rather cold after another day down in the Sand Pit.  Felt better back at the Petit Paris for their Plat de Jour.  This time started with French black pudding (bourdin), Fish Stew and a Crème Brulee with the usual 500 cl of red wine.

Friday, my last day of the week.  Of course a new problem appears in the implementation, so I have a meeting next Tuesday.  In all the weather this week has been pretty bad.  Actually the worst week for all the six months I have been in Scotland.  The only day I thought about going for a walk was on Wednesday.  Lucky I didn’t, by the time I was back at the hotel it was raining.

Slight delay on the plane back, but back before 9.00, and Rosemary was already at home.

A warm weekend

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The whole of the weekend was warm and sunny and windless.  Not a paragliding weekend.  Spent most of the time the time gardening, mowing the lawn and burning a lot of old hedging.

Rosemary spent Saturday on a pond-dipping course organised by Bucks CC as part of their “Ponds, Pools and Puddles” survey . She met experts on Dragonflies, Amphibians, Caddis flies, Hover flies and other horrible things, which lurk in ponds.

Edinburgh

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Another week at the bank has been completed.  The highlights of the week were.

The Flybe flight to Edinburgh was cancelled, and we were put on a BA flight, which was meant to leave 15 minutes earlier.  Rather a rush to catch the flight.  In the end we did not arrive in Edinburgh any earlier.  Did have a breakfast though.  Other than the breakfast, the BA flight was not fun.  Long queues at the Check in, which I had to jump, crowded aircraft, it took a long time to get on and off, and we were parked miles away from the terminal.

Yura was in town on Monday.  The result was an expensive meal at Thai Me Up for Ed, Yura and I.  The meal was very nice indeed.  Yura who is the expert on Thai restaurants in Edinburgh was heard to say the food was very good.

Tuesday I ate at the Petit Paris, having my usual pichet of vin rouge.  I ate a prepared crab followed by the fish of the day.  Afterwards I had a couple of pints of beer at the Bow Bar on Victoria Street.  The Bow Bar has a massive whisky collection.  I estimated there were 150 bottles of malt with well over 100 different malts.

Wednesday I took a walk around Arthur’s seat taking a stop at the Sheep’s Heid pub.  This pub is meant to be the oldest pub in Scotland, and resides in the ancient village of Duddingston.  The walk I did was basically along Queens Drive, which is a road used by joggers and cyclists circumnavigating Holyrood Park. The walk was quite a pretty walk, which takes you past a couple of Lochs.

Thursday, Ed, Mary and I had a few beers after work at the Guildford Arms.  When I got back to the hotel it had stopped serving food and did not even do snacks.  Not really very happy about the Mount Royal Ramada Jarvis, it has seen better days.  It is though on Princes Street and does have some actual Scottish staff.  Happy days next week, I will be back in the Apex on Grassmarket.

Friday, I ate a big breakfast to make up for the lack of Supper.  Flight left on time and arrived early into a nice warm Birmingham evening.  Of course no point landing early, the busses are never ready.

Broadband has arrived

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We are now broadband enabled.  Today we plugged the computer into the fast lane.  What a difference in speed.  No long waits while Peters emails with pictures download.  Not having to dial up to connect.  I can now download large files and not be that much older when they have finished downloading.

I am just going up the road to take down our campaing boards and thermometer.

I signed up with a company called Plusnet.  The install was easy, their website showed where the current status of the install was.  Click and the image below and get a broadband connection with Plusnet.  You know it makes sense.

Curry at 9 Cellars, Edinburgh

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Tonight was curry night.  Joe Zamir, Ed Aldridge, Gordon Chrumka,  and Joes son Jason Zamir and I tried a new curry house called 9 cellars on 1 York Place, Edinburgh.

Not the usual type of curry house, the menu was quite short, but had unusual dishes. There were none of the usual Madras or Vindaloo dishes.  I thought my lamb hock was pretty good.

The Indian curry house was below ground in a number of cellars.  I believe we were seated under the pavement.   Despite there being a large party, we were able to sit in our own little room.  Service was a bit odd and slow, with the odd fast patch; like being asked what we wanted to eat within a couple of minutes of getting the menu.  Not the normal efficient waiter, but a pretty fit continental girl. 

Other than the big party and us, there did not appear to be anyone else, though that could be hard to tell from all the cellars.