So where were we up to??

That’s right, Edinburgh, Friday 29 June!  Nearly three weeks ago now – all we can say is it has been a crazy few weeks.  So we will try to summarise everything that has happened. And I apologise in advance that photos are very simply inserted this time - no attempts at style or funky set-out.  Today I am a woman on a mission - to get this blog up-to-date!

The weekend in Edinburgh was lovely.  On Saturday morning we went walking with Nicola to see some of her local favourites.  We started with Fettes College – the boys’ school that was JK Rowling’s inspiration for the look of Hogwarts.  It is certainly an amazing building, and we were allowed to wander the grounds at the front.  Further back was off-limits as the end-of-year prize-giving was taking place in a big marquee.  We then progressed to the Royal Botanical Gardens which were absolutely lovely.  Our appreciation was aided by the fact that it was a warm, sunny morning and we hadn’t had one of those for a while. 

Fettes College

The waterfall in the Botanical Gardens (and us)

The (working) floral clock in New Town

 The afternoon was set aside for a BBQ at the home of one of Nicola’s friends, so we stopped at the supermarket for meat and drink before driving up to the suburbs.  Of course “BBQ” is a dirty word so by the time we got there, the rain clouds were rolling in.  We still had a lovely afternoon meeting Nicola’s friends, and playing giant outdoor Jenga whenever the rain eased up.  The evening was again spent watching the tennis – it has been great fun to watch whole games and be awake for them, even though we didn’t get tickets for any sessions live.

Sunday was another big day.  I had managed to get last-minute film festival tickets for a 10am session of “Brave”, which is not released in theatres in the UK until 17 August even though it has been on in NZ for some weeks now.  So we took Nicola to an animated film, which she ended up really enjoying.  And of course we loved it, even though it’s the first time ever that we have been to an animated movie without our babies.  After this, we went to The Elephant House café for lunch.  This is now an Edinburgh icon, as it is where JK Rowling sat and wrote the first Harry Potter book.  The ladies toilets are particularly interesting, as hundreds of Potter fans have scrawled messages to JK Rowling on the walls.  I don’t think anyone has told them she doesn’t hang out there anymore.

We then wandered the Old Town part of Edinburgh, seeing some of the lovely university buildings, the Greyfriars Kirkyard (including the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, a very loyal little dog), Grassmarket Lane (which is full of interesting boutique shops) and the Royal Mile which runs from the Castle to Holyrood Palace.  The intention was to visit Holyrood, and particularly it’s teashop after such a lot of walking.  Sadly for us, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had arrived the evening before and the palace was out of bounds.  We were most put out that she did not realise we were in Edinburgh too!  We eased our disappointment by walking up Carlton Hill to see the monuments and the grand view of the Firth estuary.

"Greyfriars Bobby"

One of the beautiful churches on Royal Mile

The view from Carlton Hill

Still in search of a cup of tea (or liquid sustenance of some sort), we followed Nicola to The Dome Bar & Café.  This is a seriously beautiful building, and very grand.  We felt somewhat under-dressed, but realised most of the patrons were casually dressed.  Grant did note that no-one else was in shorts and t-shirt, but the staff didn’t seem to mind.  They served us drinks quite willingly anyway.  Nicola’s friend Sarah met us here for a drink, and we were soon joined by another friend, Garth.  A very pleasant hour or so was spent just relaxing and chatting.

On Monday Nicola returned to work, and we made our way to Edinburgh Castle.  Sadly it was a truly dismal day and we could hardly see the city from the Castle.  As for Carlton Hill which we had walked up the previous day, it might as well not have existed.  The Castle itself was quite interesting, but we would have liked to have seen more of the building itself; it has becomes Scotland’s war museum and so a lot of it was dedicated to aspects of Scottish war history rather than the history of the Castle itself.

The cannonballs for "Mons Meg"

Jamie Fraser's claymore perhaps?

The rather damp view from the Castle battlements

On leaving the Castle, we meandered down the Royal Mile once more, checking out all of the souvenir shops in search of a good present for Jared.  We had already found a gift for Kate (while still in Bristol) but did not want to send it until we had something for Jared too.  We finally settled on clothes (although not another t-shirt in accordance with the instructions we have been given!).

By this time we had walked miles and were ready to sit down and let the tennis players do all the work (sounding familiar?) until it was time to meet Nicola and her mother for dinner back at The Bailie.  We had another lovely evening out; Nicola and her mum were great company and the food was delicious.

We had decided that Tuesday would be our last day in Scotland for now – we really needed to get back to Addlestone and find a flat of our own.  Doing this before Grant started work on 10 July would be pushing it, but we wanted to try.  So we planned to visit Rosslyn Chapel as our last sight-seeing event.  Yes, the Rosslyn Chapel at the end of “The Da Vinci Code”. 

This is a truly amazing building, even though I reckon that Dan Brown probably only read about it rather than visiting it himself (I couldn’t find most of the stuff he wrote about), and the carving (both religious and secular) is incredible.  So detailed and beautiful even after all these centuries – its foundations were laid in 1446.  We spent well over an hour looking at as much detail as we could take in, and it’s only a small chapel.

Grant at the entrance to Rosslyn Chapel

An exquisitely detailed flying buttress at the Chapel

As part of our last-day tiki tour, we also drove over the Forth Bridge (and straight back again, as we didn’t actually need to be on the other side of it) which is another very beautiful suspension bridge.  Another highlight of it is the great views you get of the Forth Rail bridge that runs alongside, a fantastic piece of engineering.

Our last evening was just a quiet one with Nicola as we planned an early start and a seven hour drive back to Addlestone the next day.  The drive was long but uneventful and we got back to Mark and Paula’s place before the commuter traffic started to build on the M25.  The early start was worth it!

We spent Thursday viewing flats in Woking (I had called a few local estate agents from Edinburgh to arrange viewings) as this is where one of the stations that has fast trains to Waterloo for Grant, and is only a 25 minute drive to Camberley for me in September.  We have ended up spending a little more than we planned, for a lovely flat in an apartment block that was available “immediately” due to a tenant pulling out at the last minute.  Immediate was of course a relative term, as they needed to carry out credit checks and confirm our employment before they would let us have the flat. 

While we were in Woking trying to sort out such basic things as living space, I got a call from the London teaching agency I had signed with, asking if I could do a day of supply on Friday, at a primary school in Chelsea.  As moving house was going to be costly, I jumped at the chance to earn some money.  The school was in Chelsea, and took over an hour and a half to get to by train, and the relief turned out to be helping in a nursery class – three to four year olds.  Nearly 30 of them.  I made it through the day, and salute anyone who chooses on purpose to be an early childhood teacher.  It’s certainly not my cup of tea, but the money comes in handy!

We took Saturday very quietly; I needed to recover from my day with pre-schoolers!  And the women’s Wimbledon final was on, so we went to the pub to watch it on a big screen.   On Sunday we headed up to London to watch the men’s final with Nick and Fleur, who were optimistic enough to have a BBQ at their place.  We had a lovely afternoon watching a stressful game of tennis and eating delicious food.  Everyone there was a Federer fan (sorry Andy) so we were all very pleased by the result.  I don’t mind admitting to a touch of sympathy for Andy Murray though; he came so close! 

We decided to spend Monday exploring Woking; we were determined to be optimistic about getting the flat which meant this would be our new home patch.  We were lucky enough to get a fine (i.e., not raining) morning for this and had a long walk around.  We discovered that the leisure centre and the swimming pool are very close to our building, and we will be only a ten minute stroll from the railway station.  I checked my emails when we stopped for a coffee to find positive messages from the realtors.  Instead of starting a game of email tag, we made the most of the fact that we were right there and went to their office.  It was a very fortuitous visit, and culminated in an appointment for me to pick up keys and move in at midday on Wednesday – such exciting news!

Tuesday was Grant’s first day at his new job.  I decided it would be fun to spend the day exploring in London, and meet Grant for lunch on his first day, so we caught the train together and had breakfast in London before work.  We found Le Pain Quotidien just before the Jubilee Bridge; this had been our favourite café in Manhattan Beach so it seemed a good omen.  It was certainly a very nice breakfast but the “discretionary” charge of 12.5% that was automatically added on made us feel we had been transported back to Los Angeles without the benefit of the lovely weather!

After breakfast we parted ways, with Grant going to his new work while I headed for Oxford Street.  My morning was a pretty quiet one. After catching a busy tube to Oxford Circus, I slowly browsed the stores from one end to the other, occasionally buying some funky household items and gradually making my way to where Oxford Street met Charing Cross Road (which I already knew led back towards Grant’s work).  Wandering down Charing Cross Road meant stopping at Foyles bookstore and even a short visit to the National Portrait Gallery.  I have decided that as artwork goes, portraits are not really my thing (although there were some lovely photographs of ice-skaters from the ‘30s and’40s).

We met up for lunch at about 1, after which Grant returned to work (more on that later) while I went looking for Covent Garden Market.  This was not actually very far, so after a wee browse (it’s quite small), I explored the area (doing a bit more shopping), finding the Aldwych and the theatre that the Lion King is playing at before reaching Fleet Street.  An attempt to visit the Temple Church failed (not open to visitors at that time) so the walk went on.  I reached St. Pauls Cathedral once more, but didn’t go in.  We’d like to visit that together.  It was getting on in the afternoon by now, so I headed back towards Westminster along the Embankment.  This turned out to be perfect timing, and we reunited by the Jubilee Bridge to go and hunt a train back to Weybridge.

Note from Grant about his work:

My first day at the Co-operation & Competition Panel (www.ccpanel.org.uk) went well.  They seem like a good bunch of people to work with.  There will be a lot for me to learn – the CCP’s role is determining issues of competition law in the health sector.  Neither of these topics form part of my specialist knowledge and coming from NZ, joining these concepts together seems very counterintuitive.  But I’m sure that I will get on top of it quickly and be able to usefully contribute.