Edinburgh Scotland

Hello family and friends,
Well here I am again in the place of my birth! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿  I had a fairly uneventful flight from Vancouver to Amsterdam, then a long wait in Amsterdam before the short flight to Edinburgh. I was met by cousin Helen and her hubby Mike. I had assured them I would find my way but it was nice to be met.
We got started right away with tea and chatting. They are the most hospitable hosts and won’t let me help with anything!
My first full day started off leisurely and I did not feel too jet lagged.  Early afternoon Helens sisters Moira and Brenda arrived for lunch. It was wonderful catching up and hearing them reminiscing about life when they were young.  Meanwhile Mike makes more tea and cleans up after us.  Brenda is  crafty and kindly brought me a little bag of her work.  Next we were off to Queensferry which is a village underneath the iconic Forth Bridge, always such a beautiful site to see sparkling in the splendid sunshine.  We stopped to pick up flowers to take to brother Allan’s grave, Allan passed away recently. I was glad I had met him when I visited in May 2018.  You probably know I love/ enjoy cemeteries, especially old ones with their wonderful headstones. Allan’s had a beautiful wooden cross which had been made by his grandson. The sisters shared a few family memories as we viewed other family members resting places and tidied up the flowers, adding fresh water.  I was always learning something new about our big family.
It was back to Queensferry to sit and gaze at the 3 bridge crossings, the iconic one is for trains, the two newer ones are for car traffic and for busses. I was pleased to again travel on all three!  We then went to a nice coffee shop, where Brenda’s grandson Sam worked part time, unfortunately he was not on shift.....I got some photos of a large cruise ship sitting right under the bridge. I will post pictures on Instagram as I have not mastered them on the blog. 😡.... well we stayed out so long yakking we decided we may as well carry on for dinner......a pub with fish and chips worked just fine. I was concerned we were a bit noisy in the pub as we were hooting it up ! Before we knew it, it was 11pm and we drove Brenda and Moira to their homes and were back in Dunfermline for the end of a good night....cuppa tea and bed. Moira gave me a big bag of photos to look through.
My second full day....which was today I ventured into Edinburgh on my own. I got the train which is just down the road....I could have walked but Mike gave me a lift. 30 minutes to Waverley station in the heart of Princess street. I started the long walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens. I particularly wanted to visit the Glass houses (greenhouses) to see the large Asian water lilies.....sort of like trays with raised edges. After walking for about an hour, consulting a map and asking several people who looked like they might be locals (I was only wrong 2 times) I made it, noticing my journey had been basically downhill! Never mind I was there.....for a very short time as I was told the glass houses were closed today due to the wind! back I went toward Princess street, now looking for the Torrance gallery on Dundas street. I again inquired of a few more people on the street and found Dundas was a street of many galleries. The Torrance is very small but had quite a lot of Julie Dumbartons works. It was not busy so I spent a fair bit of time chatting to the young lady in charge.
Leaving the gallery I popped into a Tesco express for a bottle of water and a bag of maltezers! Yum.
Back up on Princess street I made my way back down to Waverley for the train......to discover my off peak return ticket was now not enough for peak return so purchased a top up on my ticket and was off back to Dumfermline where Mike picked me up at the station. A nice surprise, Craig (Helens son) and John arrived for dinner. They were joking how nice it was to get a 4 course meal ......since I was visiting. We had a nice evening and ended it all till tomorrow when a large number of family are meeting for an afternoon lunch......I’m honoured they are all coming to see me.
Now it’s really late so I’m closing off till another day. ❤️