When I said yesterday that I was close by friends, I meant Pegs and Dan, who live in the highly attractive place that is Aberdour, and which we last visited in May, when the views were just as good as they were today. That’s Edinburgh over there — see Arthur’s Seat to the left, the castle in the centre. A hard place to just walk away from, but I have to go home, and will be back some day.
I’m travelling again. Like with my trip to Sussex and London two weeks ago (but hopefully this time without the day ill in the middle of it), this is a writing retreat — I have things to get down on paper, and sitting on my arse at home for days on end is not conducive for this. Hence, Scotland, today and for the next four days as well.
This clock is inaccurate, by the way. I promise.
Another trip to Scotland, this time for a conference in Aberdeen. Another long train journey north, which took hours but was mostly worth it thanks to the views, including this one of Arthur’s Seat — its second appearance on the blog (after this more close-up shot in April 2014). Not a bad shot considering it was taken from a moving train through a very grubby window.
Edinburgh, like Hebden Bridge, is a place of vertical contrasts, and it is easy enough to look down on the vast glass roof of Waverley station from above. The shot also symbolises the fact that this was the last of this trip to Edinburgh; I wish I could go there more often.
Among Edinburgh’s many endearing qualities is the fact that it has a mountain right in the middle of the city. OK, so Arthur’s Seat is only a little mountain, but it’s rugged and you have to do some scrambling to get to the very top. It’s great to get up to somewhere like this and still be down again in time to start work by 10am, which is what I did this morning.
Tim, Martin and Lesley finish off the first day with their presentation. This is the event which has brought me to Edinburgh (and, two years ago, to Maastricht); one of the best and most interesting academic conferences. Pic taken from the floor, literally — while I was speaking just before these guys, someone pinched my chair!
Shouldn’t all museums look like this? I mean, by law?
After 954 days this blog finally includes a picture from Scotland, with a few more to come over the next few days — I’m here in Edinburgh for the weekend, then a conference. This is no hardship — Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities. At the moment this does not add another country to the blog but after the independence vote next September, who knows.
Perhaps there are more representative shots to be got of the city but I think this one captures what this street is like, at least – a pedestrianised pub-lined highway, more or less. Incidentally the clock you see is an hour slow, it must still not have been put forward since last weekend. 5.30 was definitely the time the shot was taken.
