Getting off the night train.

Tunnocks

Inside the castle.

Tang’s

Greyfriars Bobby

Hannah Zakari and Analogue Books

Breakfast in our room :)

Saturday Farmers Market

Scottish Parliament

The ceiling at the portrait gallery.

At Jenners food hall. Made me think of the cafe in Kinokuniya in NYC.

The Dogs

We had such a nice time! It is such a lovely city with loads to see and do. We got the Caledonian Sleeper train there overnight from London and took the day train back, both of which were good. We found a deal and stayed in The Edinburgh Residence which was in a handy location, with huge rooms, and best of all they serve the breakfast to you in your room.

It’s a really nice city to look at and surprisingly easy to get around the centre so the best thing was just walking around. Coming from a very flat city to one as up-and-down as this was a novelty in itself. There seemed to be no shortage of good places to stop and get coffee when a sit down was needed. Indeed there were loads of nice places to eat. We had a really nice breakfast at Broughton Delicatessen the morning we got off the train, then after that we had breakfast at the hotel so didn’t really need to eat until the evening. We ate at two Japanese places, Tang’s and Sushiya. It might seem strange to single out Japanese places in Scotland but we aren’t that well provided with Japanese food in Oxford so we get Japanese food where we can :) The Dogs was amazing, and reminded me of St. John or Oxford’s Magdalen Arms with its bountiful, seasonal, meaty, sharing food.

There were lots of nice shops to browse too. One of the nicest shops I visited was Hannah Zakari. I bought an Asking For Trouble pancake card and some Kate Broughton craft nail stickers for my sister, and for me some Custom Made earrings. Simon got some good records from Unknown Pleasures.

The weather was pretty good. We even had a nap in the sun in the Princes Street Gardens. We went to look around the castle but that was really the only sight that we had to pay for. There is no shortage of art in Edinburgh. My highlight was the portrait gallery. There was also a nice walk along the River Leith to get to the Gallery of Modern Art. We looked at the Scottish Parliament, and then when our legs were going to fall off from all the walking we when to see Delicacy at the Filmhouse.

These are some of the places we enjoyed:

Shops:
Hannah Zakari
Jenners Food Hall
Analogue Books
Unknown Pleasures
Lots of the shops in the Grassmarket area

Eating:
The Dogs
Broughton Delicatessen
Tang’s
Sushiya
Patisserie Florentin

I am getting behind with posting about things :) Back when we were up in Formby we also visited the Anthony Gormley artwork Another Place in Crosby. It consists of a hundred cast iron lifesize men standing along the beach. We were there at high tide so at first we could only see a few heads until they were slowly revealed. Well worth visiting.

I meant to post these last week but we have been on a long weekend in Edinburgh and I didn’t get a chance to post them before I left. We have been doing a lot of UK tourism so far this year! These pictures are from the weekend before last when we took a train up to Formby which is just outside Liverpool. We went to look around with Simon’s sisters as that’s where they lived when they were young until they all moved for their dad’s job. The beach and pinewoods are now managed by the National Trust, I didn’t see any red squirrels.

Come on spring, hurry up! :)

Yesterday we went on a little Sunday jaunt to explore a town we hadn’t been to before. I had been told that The White Hart in Stow-on-the-wold was good, and the menu did look great, but we were too early for lunch and needed breakfast really so we went into this cute little cafe called Lucy’s Tearoom.

A good name for a chip shop.

In these little towns and villages there are often weekend antiques fairs and flea markets that are sometimes worth a look around, I hope someone takes home this bear, it had a very characterful way about it.

This church entrance is actually around the back of the church, so cool!

This is the first experiment in the mould, strawberry and cream layers.

After all the experiments we decided the best flavour was cherry and condensed milk, here it is at my sister’s birthday, we had it with local G&D’s ice cream. It went down well and was gluten free as is needed for half my family. I left it in the fridge until the last minute and it was difficult to get out of the tin so the bottom layer got a bit damaged but I don’t think that mattered.

And here at the wedding. It was really fun to try the other desserts too, the really professional looking green cheesecake is by my friend Emilie, so tasty!

I don’t have a recipe to share per se as the instructions would vary depending on what the juice and setting agent of choice is, the basic idea is that the stripes are done by alternating two different jelly flavours, waiting for each layer to set before adding the next. There are however some tips that I do have:

Living so far from the coast makes a trip to the sea so exciting! On Friday we took the train to the coast, we chose Bournemouth as it is 2 hours from Oxford on a direct train and we’d not been there. We would have gone whatever the weather but by excellent coincidence it was very hot and sunny. We had fish and chips on the beach, a good explore of the city and coastline, an icecream, a long snooze in deckchairs, then returned home sandy and sunburned as the sun was setting. A good bank holiday adventure.

Useful for carrying stuff to the bank of a muddy stream :)

I carry my Lomo LC-A camera most often when I need to lessen the load on my bicycle, so the pictures from it are usually from moments here and there. These are from foggy mornings on my morning cycle into work. These are also my first experiments with scanning the negatives myself, I am still testing things out but I am very pleased to be able to control this part of the process now.

We are having amazing weather at the moment, it is so hot you would think it was August. Joe took us on a trip downstream on his boat. Here is the last time I visited him. The weather was quite different this time, we were mostly on the roof having cups of tea and coffee, and then later gin and tonic. There was lots of cake too! I brought an orange syrup loaf, and there were also really nice brownies and a delicious cheesecake. The pace of a narrow boat is nice with lots of opportunities to get off and walk around while waiting at locks. I had to go to band practice later in the afternoon so I took my least fancy bike on the roof of the boat and then when it was time got off, waved goodbye, and cycled back to Oxford along the tow path.