Black Pudding and Angels

Given his choice of a European city in which to celebrate his birthday, Edward was in no doubt – it was to be Edinburgh.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?

We drove up on Thursday, spending a night half way at The Star – well, any excuse to visit one of our favourite places, we thought.

We (almost) had the place to ourselves, settling in for a cosy afternoon by the fire, followed by a waistband-testing supper that night and a hearty breakfast the following morning.  Oh my, how do people come here for a whole week?!

We did think that perhaps next time, we should bring a few friends with us – that table seats at least 16.

Driving north on Friday morning was bliss – the weather was perfect and the countryside full of colour and texture.  We’re lucky to live in a beautiful landscape, but this magnificent scenery is truly breathtaking.

We were heading up the A1 when one or other of us muttered something about the Angel of the North – no sooner had we said it than the sign appeared.  Oooh…we’ve wanted to see that!

We’ve both seen photographs of the figure and had clear impressions in our mind of it standing high on a hillside, looking down from a lofty place upon the world below.  Sadly, we were disappointed.

OK, I’ll admit, it’s a dreadful photograph, snapped through the windscreen at who knows how many miles per hour.  But even so, I was sad to see the Angel didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  Next time, perhaps we’ll be better prepared and take a detour to the vantage point and take time to get a more considered view.

In no time, we were in Edinburgh then.  I’d planned to be there first, to greet the birthday boy with a helium balloon or two as he got off his train, but it wasn’t to be.  We’d kept in touch throughout the morning and it was clear from fairly early on that his train from London was going to outpace our shorter, slower journey slightly.  Never mind, we all arrived in plenty of time to enjoy an afternoon in the city.

We started with the Royal Mile and headed uphill to begin with.

Of course, being with an historian, I got to see things like this stool, which apparently was instrumental in the start of the civil war – or so I learned from the birthday boy himself, who chose to go immediately to St Giles Cathedral.  He’s working on Civil War-related things right now, so was keen to see some of these things for himself.  Whilst he and his father discussed such things, I meandered about taking photographs and nodding in agreement here

admiring beautifully designed and made chairs

and simply stunning stained glass windows.

In the Chapel of the Order of the Thistle, we marvelled at the ceiling and stood for a while, spotting one of the Angels with Bagpipes up there.

Just as we were about to leave, we spotted the second one, there in the carved panel by the door

Quite appropriate that, because we had a table booked for supper at the restaurant of the same name!

Comments

[Helen Cowans]

Thanks for keeping shhhh about the beautiful bit in the middle ;)

Glad you had a good time - you went to some of my favourite places in Edinburgh. (Historic Scotland membership is cheaper and gets you into English properties btw).

Trying to sleep as I need to be up early and finding it impossible-wind is howling around the house again! What else to do but read blogs on the phone under the duvet???!