Edinburgh, an English post for Billy, our far away host

 Dear readers,

This post is, by exception, written in English, as it is written for Billy, our far away Edinburgh host, who wonders how we spend our days here. 

(voor wie geen Engels leest: een beeld zegt meer dan duizend (engelse) woorden :), onze huidige host is zelf niet thuis, maar was zo aardig om ons zijn appartement te laten gebruiken in zijn afwezigheid. Wel was hij benieuwd naar wat we uitspoken, vandaar dit bericht)

DAY 1

The warm shower was most welcome, with rosy children as a result :)

A cosy outside breakfast (too many nice carpets inside for the eating habits of our youngsters), in the scottish sun! Alas whitout the compagny of our Edinburgh host. 

A quiet start of the day. Not having to move tent for once is a real treat, the children enjoy not having to put away matrasses and sleeping bags, and choose to stay inside for once. Leonie looks up the foot-binding of Chinese women, while Irene colours, and Raf creates a robot out of used toilet rolls. In the meantime, Bert is bringing our bike to the Bicycle Works for maintenance, and enjoys some me-time after.  

For lunch, we have some very tasty wraps and salads at Kauai. Our two youngsters ordered the extra hot noodle salad (oops, missed the chili sign on the menu). Bert looks very cool today, wearing Irene's unicorn cap. 

Edinburgh castle was on our must-do-list, but as it is fully booked until next week, we enjoyed the view from a distance, and went to the national museum instead.

Quite a collection of skeletons and animals here, we loved the 4 meter wide giant spider crab and the T-Rex! We only had one hour untill closing time, but probably will be back. Museums in Scotland are free, so no need to hurry :)

While Bert is grocery shopping with Irene and Raf, Melanie and Leonie enjoy the local clothing shops, and some cool stalls along the way. We surely will miss the variety of charity shops once home!

DAY 2

We found out that travelers can also be vaccinated in the UK, so that's exactly what we did today. 7 minutes bike ride, walk in, some administration (they needed a UK address, so Billy, hope you don't mind we used yours), and one hour after leaving home, we had both got our first Moderna injection.

No pictures allowed inside, but for this one. Hopefully the website indeed gives us the data needed to have our first jab registered in Belgium.

Out of many options, our youthful trio knew just what they wanted to do today. In the meadows, a large city park, there is a stall that sells hot drinks, and, even better, gives them for free to those that collect a bag full of litter. They even provide pick up tools for extra fun. The trio collected from 11AM to 3.30 PM (minus a lunchbrake). Edinburgh never looked cleaner!

Many, many cigarette buds are needed to fill a waste-bag... . Luckily, people also throw away larger things :§

The bounty. Very heavy indeed, Raf here is just posing for the picture, while it was poor mummy having to drag the thing along. 

The prize, well earned for a days hard work. Each of them got a hot chocolate drink, topped with marshmellows and cinammon. I got a tea (as I had the hot chocolate in the morning, before the bag was too heavy for them to carry)

DAY 3

Today we stayed in, feeling rater weak, tired and fevery from the vaccine, especially Melanie. We watched two movies (Smallfoot and Jungle Book, the recent non-animated) and prepared a huge batch of lasagna, plant-based of course.

Bert and the kids still manage to get to the nearby playground. (the children really wanted to stay in and watch even more movies, but had a tickly bit too much energy for that...)

DAY 4

Our last day in Edinburgh, we went to visit the Botanical gardens in the morning and did the Dynamic Earth tour in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of the latter, which was rather spectacular and educational at the same time.

DAY 5

Today we're leaving Edinburgh. We feel like we have only seen the beginning yet and could have stayed  much longer. But then again, there are quite some miles ahead that we don't want to rush. Up to Norhtumberland now! 

Some washing and cleaning seems appropriate before we leave. A kitchen scene this morning.