Birthday Trip to Edinburgh

We headed to Lancaster late Friday morning.  Tom fell asleep in the car on the way over - it was 11am - he hasn't fallen asleep that early for a long, long, long time!  However, we think he may have been a little ill this week: on Wednesday he came out in a rash on his forearms and neck, we took him for a check up with the Dr to get the ok to send him to nursery and she said it was caused by a virus and his ears were inflamed.  So he had Wednesday at home with me on Drs orders and went back to school / nursery on Thursday.  He seemed ok to us though - maybe something just lingering in the background.

Lots of animals

Major Tom?

Once he had woken up, we headed into Lancaster to get our lunch from M&S (ready for eating on the train) and then headed back to the train station for what is now our compulsory stint of train spotting.  We got to Edinburgh on time, we walked in the rain to our hotel which was quite close by.  We were booked in at The Howard hotel, a very nice hotel full of suites and butlers (no female staff - very strange)  We had a HUGE bed and Tom a sofa bed (he was very very pleased with this).  We refreshed and then headed out to the shops and Pepperberry for which I had received a number of vouchers.  This is a shop I found on line which makes clothes for the busty lady.  I turned up and a lovely lady took me under her wing as I explained my problem - especially the fact I need something to wear to Simon's wedding later this month.  WOW!  Why didn't I know this shop existed?  I couldn't believe it, I put on a dress and discovered that I do have a figure - and it's not all that bad!  Basically they have regular shop sizes: 10, 12, 14 etc, but then they have additional subsizes: curvy, really curvy and super curvy.  For the first time in ages, I had a problem - there were a number of clothes that fitted me and I liked, I had trouble deciding what to get!  I also got remeasured for a bra and discovered the bra I was using was very much the wrong size.  Anyway, I left a happy girl, and now have a dress for Simon's wedding,  1 summery top which I will hopefully get to wear this year and two new bras - thank you to those who got me the vouchers - if anyone is ever struggling to think of a Christmas / birthday present for me then Pepperberry vouchers will make me very happy.  I am looking forward to visiting their Oxford Street shop next time I'm in London to see what else they do.

Reflective Tom

Once I had finished in the shop (in fact the shop closed whilst I was still in it) we looked around for something to eat and ended up in a Korean restaurant eating Japanese food (all the Korean food seemed to be hot)  We then returned to the hotel - Tom went to bed and we had a relaxing evening in the hotel lounge (we took Tom's monitor with us and it worked in the lounge which was fab).

Saturday didn't dawn particularly beautiful, so we decided to get ourselves some day rover tickets for the buses and look round the city.  First stop was the National Museum of Scotland, which was good.  There was a technology bit with lots of buttons to press - including some trains, and a natural history bit with lots of animals.  Once we all had rumbling tummies we headed out to find some lunch and ended up in a Japanese restaurant with a load of starters - edamame, gyoza, karage, agedashi tofu - basically all our favourites - yum, yum, yum.  Tom took a real liking to the edamame - hoovered up over half of them.  We then got the bus to the Royal Mile and nipped in to the Museum of Childhood - lots of display cabinets stuffed with old toys.

Tom in his sofa bed

Next stop was Ocean Terminal.  We thought it sounded interesting and it is home of The Royal Yacht Britannia, so it was bound to have something about it.  WRONG!  We got there and found a very formulaic shopping centre and cinema.  We were very, very disappointed, but at least we had a good ride on the double decker bus down there.  We had tea and a bun in the Debenham restaurant overlooking The Royal Yacht and then headed back to the hotel.  When we got back, we suggested to Tom that maybe he should have a rest before we headed back out for dinner.  He, to our amazement agreed, got into bed and fell asleep???!!!!  He hasn't done that since the day after we moved to Lupton!

As we had eaten nothing but Asian food since arriving in Edinburgh, we decided we should head out and find something a little more local, so did a quick search on the Good Pub Guide and found a good pub only 5 minutes away.  We headed over and found a great pub - but still nothing typically Scottish.  I ended up with falafel and Matt - bangers and mash.  Oh well - it was good food and a nice atmosphere.  We then headed back to the hotel for Tom to go to bed and for us to put our feet up in the lounge again - being brought tea, coffee, posh water and shortbread biscuits by the very attentive butlers.

Sunday we got up and headed to a local cafe we had read about on the web - set up for small children and their parents.  Got there to find it was closed on Sundays (poo! They need to update their website) so instead ended up in Caffe Nero.  We then looked round the local foody market before heading to The Botanical Gardens.  Typical - as soon as we got there it started to rain, we sheltered for a little while and then decided to brave it.  We were lucky, the weather cheered up and we had a good game of hide and seek in the gardens.  I took the chance to play with my new camera - in its close up mode (important for my cakes) and fish mode (yes - it has a fish mode and the gardens had a mini aquarium)

Purple Flower

Red Flower

We spent a pleasant time there and then strolled back to the hotel, picked up our bags and looked for lunch.  Guess where we ended up - yep - another Japanese restaurant - I guess we must miss the stuff.  I then popped back into Pepperberry to get another top - it was now or never and it was too good an opportunity to miss, especially with our forthcoming trip to Oz.

Then we were back at Waverley Station and on the train back home.  There was another little boy in the carriage with us.  It took a while, but eventually Tom got up the courage to play with him and they had a ball - making each other giggle.  The journey seemed to take no time at all.  Then back home, a quick dinner and bed - all of us tired and happy.

Thanks Matt, it was a lovely weekend.