Edinburgh

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This week I am back to a five-day week.  Caught the 7:55 Easyjet from Luton Airport.  It never ceases to amaze me my boarding number is in the hundreds, what time do those who board first arrive at?  Good flight to Edinburgh, left on time, arrived on time, clear day in Edinburgh.  I saw Arthurs Seat, the castle mound,  Carlton hill, Hibs stadium and Murryfield.  Yes this was the first time I spotted these famous landmarks from the air.  I think it must have been the route we took, a little nearer the city and not flying far out to sea that we sometimes do, (to waste time and slot into a landing I presume).

Was a good day in Edinburgh, plenty of sun.  Ate at Petit Paris and had a warm bacon and herring salad to start, and rabbit to finish.

Tuesday, not so warm today and the sun never shone..  The bank started running performance tests today, so worked late until  7.30 in the evening.  After work had a beer in the Globe with Bill Strachan, Mary, Ed and the new salesman Mark Robertson.  After the Globe we ventured into the Opal Lounge, seems the door men have forgotten Mary and I after the little incident on Jacks leaving day.  Here we had a Thai Fusion meal, quite good.  Left just after eleven so Mary could catch the train back to Glasgow.  I ventured into Whistle Binkies for a quick pint, but ended up listening to three bands playing.  One band (Stella 66) comes from Liverpool, I pretended I was interested in having them play at Selina’s wedding and scrounged a free CD from them.  Selina tells me there is a bar in Liverpool called Stella 66 which she of course has drunk at.  Eventually managed to drag myself out of there by 2.30 and into bed just before sunrise.

Wednesday was another late day, leaving the bank at 8.00.  Spent the day trying to find out why the performance was not great, and why some transactions in the test scripts were not working.  Lovely sunny day though.  Evening I tried to find a new restaurant called the Fez on Nicolson Street.  Never found it.  Now reading the article in the restaurant guide I see its says “Tucked away in a basement under a kebab shop not far away from the Festival Theatre, it would be easy to saunter past Fez without realising it was there”  So I ended up eating at the Bay of Bengal on the High Street.  Remind me never to eat there again.  Afterwards I had a quick pint with Ed, and an early night before midnight.

Thursday was bright and sunny.  Worked late until 10.00pm so did not get out to eat.  Some pizza was brought in while we were running our tests.  I was tempted by WB, but decided on an alcohol free night and went back to the Apex City to watch TV.

Friday was not very eventful.  Plane left on time.  Arrived home before 7.00 and before Rosemary was home.  Nice evening, had a quick drink in the Plough and Anchor  just before 8.00  One regular couple leaving said we were too late.

Edinburgh

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This week was a short week in Edinburgh, just the three days.  I have also made a change in the flights, now flying from Luton instead of Birmingham.  Since the summer season has started, the flight back to Birmingham was a bit too late or too early.  I wanted a nice 16.00 flight back so that I was not to late home in the evening.

Well it all started pretty well, caught the 7.55 Easyjet from Luton and arrived on time at Edinburgh.  It was a miserable day though, raining in Buckinghamshire and raining in Edinburgh.  Rosemary told me the weather in London was Thunderstorms, Hail and Snow.  Very very Frightening.

Back into the Apex City with the lovely walk in showers, and yet again I add to my collection of ducks.

Evening was a meal at the Petit Paris, Tomato and Basil soup followed by Coq Oh Vin, then a couple of pints with Ed.

Wednesday was a mixture of showers and sun.  Started bright but cold.  In the evening had a quick meal at Petit Paris, then onto Whistle Binkies and Bannermans for some rock music.  Quite entertaining.

Thursday I caught the earlier (16.30) flight back to Luton.  Was a bit delayed.

Bird song day

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A three-day holiday, but what horrible weather.  Rained all day on Saturday, Rosemary went to visit her parents, I  did Tescos and installed a wireless link at the neighbours so they could access the internet through our broadband.  The took us our for a meal at the Pheasant in Brill.

Ah Saturday, up at 3:45 to meet up with some other lunatics at Finemere wood to hear the dawn chorus.  I have never heard so much noise from a group of people trying to keep quiet.  People should not wear all those expensive Gortex jackets.  Hey a quite fleece was all that was needed on this rainless warm early morning.  We heard some birds, (too numerous for me to name) and then had a walk around in the light to see the bluebells.  Finished off with a bacon roll and then back to the house by 8.00 for the rest of the day.  This was organised by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.  Finemere wood is about two miles from us.  Though we have never walked through it, we have often visited the pond near by.

A little git of gardening  in the afternoon while the weather was fine.

Sunday started off wet and miserable, so a day in front of the PC I think.  Maybe a quick visit to the P&A in the evening to sort out the Tug of War.

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.

Edinburgh

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Another day completed.  Decided not to take a walk, weather looked like it could drench me at any moment.  So had an unusually quiet evening watching the box in the hotel.  Eventually went out for an almost alcohol free evening mean at the Petit Paris.  Yes I know, how boring, two days in a row.

Very nice starter of thinly sliced scallop marinated in olive oil, lemon and chervil, followed by pan fried Monk fish with a few mussels in a Saffron cream sauce.

Good news, have heard that the ADSL line at home is now active, and the modem/router should have been delivered, except Selina did not hear the delivery man, or was still asleep.