Day 8, our last day in Scotland that didn't involve alot of catching various modes of transport to get back to Canada.
This is the day we finally try haggis, that most Scot of foods. Coming from Asian descent, eating offal is just another day taht ends in 'y'. So I wasn't surprised to find I quite liked it. Again, one of those foods you want to reach for after been drenched in non stop rain and fog and cold and rain. I had a somewhat traditional breakfast, with the egs and sausage and the fried tomato. That's something I've tried a few times to reproduce, the properly fried tomato and all I get is a devastated mush of disappointment.
With such a substantial breakfast it's time to have a last day of Edinburgh, the only way we know how. My wife finds places that have featured on websites and social media and are quite pretty and we walk there. Cobbled streets, sidewalks, walkways, it's sight seeing time.
The first stop is a... curved area with flowers on the houses? I'm assured this is everything my partner was looking for. We take a few pictures and it's really the sort of place you go to see other people taking the same photo because they all saw the
same trend on social media. But it's also the sort of place where each unit sells for a blisteringly high price which can only be fueled by the sorts of people who understand 'money markets', 'derivatives', or have earnestly gotten someone else to believe in the latest tech hype.
It's a LOT of walking over uneven cobbled streets. Me, being a practiced hand at Twisting My Ankle While Waiting in Line am flabbergasted I've not managed to do my tendons some serious damage this whole trip. I think at a certain age and after a certain tens of times rolling the ankle one either continues doing this or becomes hyper vigilant but always looks like someone walking while keeping a hobbyist amount of nitro glycerin in their pockets at all times: careful, stilted, and always looking at one's feet.
This is a picture of a truck in what is sure to be one of the most rarest and expensive parking spots in all of Edinburgh and I only say that because it's painted an almost insistent colour of 'I'm just a regular fellow" workman's green. That and the "Range Rover" name on the hood.
We then walk along a canal rich in history and buildings and this sign which perhaps says something about the tax bracket of the people who live here. Well, the tax bracket or the median age, or both. But in any case the value of either would be 'rather high'.
This is a very picturesque stream that runs somewhere in New Town. Any time I gaze at a body of water too close to urban centers I worry about seeing dead fish or some abandoned tires. Maybe a crime scene just finishing up. There was the odd trash but it was suspiciously clean, for the most part.
Here was an old mineral well. I assume this means an old mineral water well? But I went on a long detached diatribe about how this is a well for rocks when my son asked me, continuing on some fevered gag that I would not let up even after the several insistent eye rolls from him. A dad must respect The Craft, is all I have to say about that.
So this entire area, Dean's Village, used to have many water powered mills surrounding them. Just think, all these stone mills grinding wheat or barley and feeding these people for decades.. hundreds of years? That this river went from a necessity for life to just a 'pleasant thing to walk besides' is really fascinating. And this, one of the actual mill rocks preserved was one of the coolest things I saw this day. This actually produced food for folks, long, long since dead. These grooves guided the crushed grain to the outside! If having an undying fascination for this piece of historical stone makes me and over the hill middle aged dad well, well, actually that tracks so nevermind.
Then we get to the money shot, the pretty buildings hunched around a prettier stream. This building, amazingly, was a communal housing for all the out of work millers and the like, setup by the owner/founder of the newspaper The Scotsman. To ensure they didn't fall unto hard times. There were stipulations they went to church and the like, but, wow, it's the sort of civic largesse you pretty much never hear about anymore.
It starts to rain rather insistently. Yes, we know we are Scotland, don't need to rub it in our faces. We walk along this very verdant dell which has all sorts of things of interest. Not the least of which is this verdant dell used to be the site of the loch that used to border the city, the one that caught all the end results of "Gardy Loo's", if you catch my meaning.
We took refuge in the National Art Gallery. Which had many pieces of work that were painted. And that's the extent of my art history knowledge. I was aware that some of these pieces were very significant but besides the faintest glimmer of recognition from me I'm afraid the works of the masters were wasted on me.
The only way to end the day is with some slightly overpriced, but beautiful pastries. It was a lovely end to our last day in Edinburgh, a final , understated meal, with absolutely no offal in sight.
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