Just capital

The weekend just gone saw a trip to Edinburgh to celebrate Megan's birthday and attend a Valtos gig. I have never spent much time in Scotland's capital city, with the previous highlight being a junior school trip to the zoo many, many years ago. Megan on the other hand, spent her student days there, and the venue for the gig, La Belle Angele, was one of her old stomping grounds.

Megan had spent the previous week visiting friends in Inverness and Glasgow and taking in a Belinda Carlisle gig with her besties. I met up with her outside Waverley Train Station and we walked to our accommodation via a coffee and cake stop.

Wildlife-wise, I was struggling to see many species of bird as we pottered the streets, but the walls and pavements provided plenty of flora to identify. When we reached our accommodation, maybe 25 minutes from the city centre, the view from the lounge window was not what I was expecting.

Renting a top floor flat gave us a vista across Holyrood Park towards Arthur's Seat, although the payback was the ascent of three flights of stairs. Not to be taken lightly if you're used to living in a bungalow.

Perusal of Bing Maps in satellite view and OS map view showed a damp valley surrounded by hills, Hunter's Bog. Although the Summer's drought would likely mean no open water, the site seemed the most obvious place to look for dragonflies. I wasn't going to waste precious time unpacking, not with rain forecast, so off we went back down those stairs and into the park. 

There were so many tourists crammed onto the paths leading to Arthur's Seat, it looked as though they were queueing! Thankfully, we were safe in the knowledge that we were taking a less-travelled path in search of a different high. Our first ode was only fleetingly glimpsed and couldn't be identified beyond being a medium-sized dragon as it zoomed out of sight never to be seen again. The valley was also surprisingly breezy, so it wasn't until we reached the sanctuary of some stands of gorse bushes that there were signs of many insects at all. Sure enough, out of the wind and in full sunshine, here were several Common Darters.

As it began to rain, we made our way to the cafe at Holyrood Palace, to meet up with another of Megan's old friends from her university days and take on some much-needed refreshment. Following that, we splashed our way back to the flat and another assault on the north face of the stairwell.

By evening, the weather had improved, so we walked back into the city for a lovely meal. En route, we passed a bowling green which had obviously seen better days. Trying to decide whether it was still in use or not, I guessed "Not" due to the presence of several Rabbits on the once-hallowed turf... and quite a lot of discarded carrots. It made me chuckle. At the restaurant, whilst discussing initial plans (see previous post), we both opted for venison, a sumptuously meaty and unctuous dish. The walk back to Holyrood Park was, therefore, understandably much slower.

The following morning, I had another attempt to see more dragons in the park, but with the same result, just a few Common Darters. There were more birds to be heard though, with plenty of warblers calling from the bushes, at least one of which was a Chiffchaff. Presumably these were all on their journey to Africa for the Winter.

Again, the afternoon was wet, so we took a taxi to the city centre to have a meal before the gig. Megan chose a spicy and creamy tagliatelle dish, whist I went with a chicken and spinach risotto. Then, after three enjoyable hours of DJs and celtic fusion, we walked back through the night-time streets to the flat.

Once we had returned to Orkney, the weather properly turned Autumnal, cooler, wetter and windier. Tomorrow there will be much disruption to the inter-island ferry timetable, so it sounds like more of an office day than a ladder day. But at least there's no stairs!