Bartimaeus

While Bryn was with us we had a meal out together at Chaakoo. The food was great as usual and Bryn tried an interesting cocktail. I chose a beer this time and it was the nearest we came to seeing a kingfisher in many months. 

The strap line 'look up see the beauty, may work for swallows or kites, but we often have seen kingfisher at our level or below on a low branch and they fly quite low over the water too. Not all birds are seen high in the sky.

I finished my pigeon - not flying at all, a resting pigeon, bound for Newhailes House Doocot, though a bit top heavy so he seemed to tilt forward. He needs a ramp to sit on. 

I needed to make arrangements to have him delivered and hoped he wouldn't fall on his beak. 

Bryn's visit flew past. I walked him to the train station. The election posters and pamphlets were in full swing while he was with us. Shane and I had got voting out of the way earlier by having postal votes, since we didn't know we'd be in Edinburgh. At Waverley station, apparently the only station named after a novel, there are a number of Sir Walter Scott quotes. I hadn't read all of them but these caught my eye as still relevant at the present time.

On the way back the sky was blue and the blossoms pink. It made for a pleasant walk. I knew this wouldn't last too long. The spire reaching up to heaven made for a good centrepiece.

At the end of the week Shane was planning a cycle trip with friends and I surprised him by saying I would be happy to come along and enjoy their company. The length and speed of his rides varies with who his companions are and I felt that Sally and Ewan were ones that would be suitable paced riders for the tandem as well as being friends I had missed seeing on the day of the social when I bowed out with a cold. They were heading for the bluebell wood and that was definitely a distance I would manage comfortably.

We stocked up at the Dunbar bakery and after a coffee and pastry stop on a village green, we swooped on to where we had lunches last time. We took our savoury purchases and flasks with us through the wood, admiring the deep pile blue carpet on the forest floor on the way.

At the pond I saw tadpoles. We could hear the grebe again. Sally and I were seated on the ground. I was less delighted to see a tick crawling up my milk container, as we packed up. We checked ourselves over. I was going to be checking again later.

When we got back from the trip, we were extolling the virtues of the Dunbar bakery and Nye said next time we fancied a cycle ride he might want to join us. While we both think he would have loved the stops on that ride, he might have found the undulating terrain quite tiring, being unaccustomed to longer rides. Shane proposed that we re-do the trip he had done with me for our first ride in a long while as having suitable stops, even if it didn't include the legendary bakery, a part-way train escape, if necessary, and fewer miles in total. 

It was a lovely sunny day and Nye was enjoying the butterflies as much as I do. We stopped briefly at the high point. We made a joke of the view of the oil refinery and Nye sent Bryn a photo of it so he wasn't jealous. At the same time pivoting only a few degrees I got the next stretch of coast along.

Our first stop was in Bo'ness and Shane remembered I had wanted a picture of the large mining memorial wheel. It was definitely much bigger than six foot in diameter now I had Nye for scale...probably more than six foot radius!

The cafe seemed to have a slightly different menu and none of the things we had had or considered were available but we still all found something to suit. There was no MacMoofin but two tasty soups were on the board. Nye donated a very hot chilli from his plate which went well with my sweet potato soup. He cooled his mouth with a raspberry ripple ice-cream milkshake.

There was another ice cream stop promised at South Queensferry, where I found the hand gel in our pannier was stickier than my Scottish tablet ice-cream.

I had a friend to meet at four o'clock, but we didn't need to worry if Nye found the pace harder at the end of the day and fell behind as he told us he thought he'd know how to get home.

We were close together in the woodland to all see the buzzard up in the canopy flying from tree to tree. We all got back in good time and didn't lose him. Nye had kept up well even though we hurried the last few miles, which was following cycle route 76 until it changed to route 1 which would take us to the Meadows. He feels he could do it again, with a friend and without us.

The increase in family time continued the next day with a visit from my sister Mary. I headed to meet her at Waverley station. She wasn't going to see the blossom in all its glory as there was a cold wind bringing the petals down apace as I headed to the station to meet her.

Unfortunately for Mary, the sun of the previous week was not in evidence and instead there was a duvet of cloud over the city.

Mary was well wrapped and we had a trip to see our sister and explored the local area. There was much flower identification going on. They are both ahead of me in flower names, but I used my app to name this different forget-me-not variety, which I've already forgotten.

Darting across the road to identify another, we almost missed the intriguing John Livingston's tomb, a man with a lengthy inscription, and a tomb and garden from 1645. He and his wife left this world abruptly. He died from plague and was interred on his estate, not in a graveyard, and well outside what was the city of Edinburgh, at that time. This spot is in the Atlas obscura, "the definitive guide to The World's Hidden Wonders". Even though I know where it is, I sometimes fail to  find it, but happily we did and enjoyed the quiet spot in the city, living up to the epitaph 'no age shal los his memorie'.