Tourist trappings

The airbed has been christened (and by all accounts makes for a good night's sleep) - we have just said goodbye to our first houseguests, A's sis and her man. Having visitors proved a good excuse to do some seriously touristy things, like visit Edinburgh Castle. We arrived just in time to get a big fright from the one o'clock gun, and a super-enthusiastic tour from one of the smiliest guides in town. We also got to see Mons Meg, a really big gun (I know some readers will be interested in this!), the Scottish Crown Jewels and Stone of Destiny (what a cool name!), and the most amazing war memorial I've ever seen - a whole building, inside which is a steel casket atop a marble plinth on top of the highest point of the volcanic rock on which Edinburgh Castle was built. Sealed inside the casket are the names of those who fought & died in WWI.

We also visited a pub on the Grassmarket (where people used to get hanged but now a favourite haunt of hen-night hoardes in matching t-shirts, and of course the ubiquitous tourists), the White Hart Inn. It's one of Edinburgh's oldest pubs, so not without its charms. Robbie Burns stayed here back in 1791 and composed Ae Fond Kiss to his lover Clarinda during his stay. We were greatly entertained at the White Hart by Graeme E Pearson, clad in tartan troosers and tam o'shanter, with a great repertoir of crowd-pleasing celtic classics and banter. Much clapping and whooping and singing along. Cheesy, definitely, but fun nonetheless.

I'm starting to sound Scottish. A bloke from Christchurch we met, while I was sporting my "kia kaha, nga titties o te whenua" T-shirt (thanks mum!), asked how long I'd been in NZ for. He was gobsmacked when I said 16 yrs, was probably expecting me to say 2 weeks or a month.

The holiday is officially over - tomorrow I start work, although since I just have to show up at "around lunchtime" it might not be too much of a shock to the system just yet!