Day Two Part One (or the Mystery of the Right Arm)

Saturday. I entered a light doze around 7:45 and was quite content to lie there happy in the knowledge that we were on holiday and could take things easy. Then skit got up. Now, granted she didn’t jump on me shouting in jubilance, but she did make me get up just as readily by playing the “anything you can do I can do better^H^H^H^H^H^H as well” card. Could I really let her be up and about without me? No chance. I was her equal in rising and being active before the postman loses the taste of toothpaste.

And so I found myself (leaping from life to life?) dressed and outside before 8:15am. I grabbed some flapjack fuel and my camera and greeted the morning.

It was glorious. Skit’s eagerness to rush outside was well justified. The light was golden (as were the fields of wheat) and it was fresh outside with hints of warmth. We took the first footpath we saw, heading in the direction of Wallyford (great name) and with grand unimpeded views of Edinburgh.

This footpath had two faults. The first was obvious quite early on: it was a stream. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be a stream and it was just the solid month of rain they had had in that area (except for maybe one afternoon) making its presence known but the erosion on the path really did make it look more like a stream bed. So, that was fun. Wet but fun. The second fault should have been obvious from the start but it was only after half an hour of walking that it twigged: we were going downhill quite fast. Which of course meant quite a nasty amount of uphill climbing.

Still, we enjoyed our way down the hill, taking photos of dew-decorated cobwebs and snacking on blackberries. We turned from the footpath-stream and took a lane that led to the road for our journey uphill. We could certainly tell why the skitmobile struggled the night before but we were invigorated enough by the day that it was an enjoyable slope and not as far as I feared. It even provided us with some entertainment as we came across a frog squished such that its innards were displayed like a drawing from an anatomy book. Odd things entertain me.

The view of the castle from the road during daylight was much more impressive than the view at dusk when we were tired and hungry. It sat like a tooth on the skyline (a tooth with turrets). How wonderfully lucky that we should find such a perfect place for us? Luck aided of course by skit’s superior googling skillz.

Biped was out admiring the view and the day so we had a quick mutual glee session, marvelling at the morning sun, the view of the city and the castle looming at our backs. But we were soon inside and making breakfast, the best part of any Hobbling holiday.

This breakfast was eggy bread with strawberries and bacon with a breakfast smoothie and tea and coffee for myself and biped respectively. Our large and delicious breakfasts will go down in legend.

Our plan for the day was to go into Edinburgh, horrify Mike and drive his customers away and perhaps catch a few shows. We were going to go by train into Edinburgh but somehow skit found the strength to drive into the city. We parked in a multi-story car park and then walked to the heart of Edinburgh.

It was my first time in the city though both skit and biped had been there before. I don’t think that stopped them from joining me in looking around in delight at Royal Mile. The Fringe performers were out in full strength, thrusting leaflets declaring “5 stars!” at us (as given by a random blogger or a performer’s mum, one suspects). There was also some street theatre. We didn’t spend long looking at the man with the skin-tight lycra suit riding a unicycle (actually, he may have just spray painted his skin, there was so little left to the imagination) but we hung around and watched some dancers who were flipping and somersaulting right on the pavement. There was also a rather sad but beautiful puppet show where a puppet with a potato-like head contemplated a feather.

We moved on and up, weighed down with flyers, to a certain shop called Transreal Fiction, passing many shops selling kitsch souvenirs, tartan, armour and roast hog.

I hid behind skit and biped as we entered the shop. I couldn’t pretend to be a random customer (as I once did when I spied on Kate in the Cambridge Waterstones) as Mike knew them (and he probably could have recognised me, to be fair. Curse flickr.). I was kind of taken aback at Mike’s appearance as skit once described him to me as a typical Edinburgh gentleman which led me to imagine a wizened old man, an idea reinforced by his “you young wipper snappers” Board posts. But instead there was a cheery face with all the aged wisdom of a five-year old who had just discovered the thrills and spills of the whoopee cushion. (An idea reinforced by his bad puns in Board posts.) He and skit quietly chatted while I browsed the shelves with biped.

The bookshop wasn’t how I imagined either. Dusty stacks seemingly propping up the ceiling, creaking staircases to platforms at varying heights and a maze-like layout of shelving with books unorganised by any recognisable human system was not the reality. The reality was a bright small room with shelves in a regular fashion well-stocked with new books. Above the shelves were framed works of art- Madeleine’s exhibition and behind and on the counter were soft toys. I observed to biped, in too low a voice for Mike to overhear, that the book selection was fantastic. I had grown tired of browsing bookshops, once a great hobby, because I only ever saw the same authors. I swear, the stock in Waterstones and Borders has not changed for the past decade unless you count the proliferation of Doctor Who and Torchwood tie-in books. But the choice in Transreal books was different. And the mere presence of a Neil Stephenson non-fiction book (“In the beginning was the command line” I believe) was enough to confirm that different = good.

I rejoined the others. The conversation had got to what shows we should watch and Mike berated us for not being organised. After all, he had sent the programme to us. I had read through the programme (at least the comedy and drama sections) but it was impossible to tell the difference between any of the shows from the vague and non representative descriptions. Mike suggested a few things and I recall proclaiming that I liked the “weird stuff” (skit, biped and I dissolved into giggles. Mike did not. It’s a Dr Horrible thing...). For some reason though the excitement of the soft toys in front of me (or something) meant that all suggestions went in one ear and out the other. I think they found something to root in inside skit or biped but my memories of this were... vague. Were there stilt walkers mentioned or am I just dreaming?

We left the shop. To be fair, since we entered two browsers had followed so we weren’t exactly driving customers away (which we are experts on in cocktail bars) but we couldn’t have been helping either. So off we went with some vague direction in mind. It may have been the Pleasance for that is where we ended up but honestly, my brain was not being housed in my head that day.

Our walk, whatever the destination, took us to Greyfriar’s Kirkyard. Skit told us the tale of the Greyfriar’s Bobby, to which I listened attentively, honest, not at all dismissing it as ridiculous just because it was about a dog. Anyway, I shouldn’t be allowed near cemeteries normally but I restrained myself here and was interested more in the view than the gravestones and (often open) crypts. The city’s most attractive feature for me is its relief. The multiple levels of the buildings due to the hills produces some astonishing views that put me in mind of fantasy cities: narrow structures, higgledy piggledy with alleys and bridges and twists and turns verging on the Escher. Later I commented on this to Mike and skit saying I could imagine Locke Lamora running for his life in this city.

Skit and I sat on a tree stump prodding each other as we waited for biped to reappear from her wander behind the kirk. We discovered an oddity: we each had sore arms. The exact same spot on our right arms was causing us pain (not aided by the prodding). How did we share the same injury? Had biped attacked us during the night? Was it the seat belts? No, then they would not be the right arm on each of us. Then what was it?!

Without finding the answer, just a new way to inflict pain on each other and eventually biped, we continued on our journey across Edinburgh.