From Yorkshire to Edinburgh

Well, it's a quiet Saturday with the fam in Edinburgh. I am largely attempting to ignore the festival on our doorsteps as peace and relaxation is much more appealing! I'll get to the Surrealism exhibition at the Dean Gallery this afternoon but will probably leave it at that. Everyone is well here and we're looking forward to catching up with everyone. The concert tomorrow night is at the back of my mind - excited and nervous!

So we spent such a lovely couple of days in Yorkshire (actually, for the sake of accuracy, it was the Forest of Bowland). On Wednesday we visited my Great Uncle Ian (one of our great family characters) before stopping at Aysgarth Falls for a wee walk. The B&B was (in keeping with D's well-known ability to choose amazing holiday accommodation) lovely. Spent two happy sessions under the stars in the hot tub. On Thursday we visited the beautiful Fountains Abbey. I have wanted to visit this ruin for a long time but it exceeded my expectations. Just stunning! And then it was off to Harrogate to Betty's. Now Betty's is a Yorkshire institution - it is a proper old school cafe, famous for its lovely afternoon teas. So, given that it was our three year anniversary (I know! Unbelievable huh!) we treated ourselves to an amazing afternoon tea with cakes and fat rascals and delicious sandwiches and light Rwandan tea. All so good! What a great day we had! Then yesterday it was a long drive to Edinburgh. We decided to take a detour through Dumfries and Galloway as neither of us had ever been. It was a lovely drive topped off by a visit to New Lanark, Robert Owen's socialist paradise experiment. It is an amazing place and all fairly inspiring really. I like my socialist utopias! ;-)

We arrived in Edinburgh just last night and are looking forward to a couple of nice days in Auld Reekie before travelling up to Kingussie via Brechin. This is a fairly unusual holiday for us. Generally we are abroad exploring, but this trip has been great so far. It is just lovely to see everyone and to visit some of Britain's most beautiful places. D has taken some good photos so I'll post them here when we get back home in a week.

CSW