Hello

I’m still in the process of editing my short short story for my first competition entry of 2013. I’ve always been editing the story once every 24 hours but had to leave it for three whole days on account of a late Christmas present. A Christmas present me and my girlfriend had given to each. A trip away to Edinburgh.

My girlfriend Michelle works as a nurse and has to schedule her time off way in advance. This meant that 11th – 14th March was the earliest she could book time off work. We decided, well she did and I agreed, to go away on holiday for a few days instead of buying each other Christmas presents. And anything that we want we have or go out and buy so it was a good idea. We discussed the Lake District and Edinburgh and eventually settled on Edinburgh. I booked the hotel and she booked the train tickets.

We arrived in Edinburgh on a cold Monday 11th March 2013 afternoon. I thought I could use my map location/GPS thing on my phone to find the hotel. But I learned a life lesson that day. Don’t rely on those blood things. Everytime I stopped to check we were going in the right direction it changed the sodding route. This meant that when we got to our hotel, an average place that was just about what we needed, we had gone in a few circles. Anyway, we got ourselves settled and went out for some food and few drinks to start the holiday off.

The next day we decided to visit Edinburgh Castle. It was still cold but we didn’t want to let that stop us. After having a Scottish Breakfast, I forgot that haggis isn’t that bad, we set off up the hill towards the castle.

Oh yes. I have pictures.

Even from the car park the views from the castle are pretty good. Though they’re better when you get inside. It costs £14.95 (at time of writing) per adult and we made sure we got our money’s worth. The following are some of the photo’s I took whilst wandering round.

Just a couple of notes on these pictures. The first picture is the first view of Edinburgh city centre you can see when you enter the castle grounds. The middle picture to the left is the ‘One O’clock gun’ which is fired everyday. The bloke on uniform marches out and fires the gun. And that’s it. The bottom picture is the one I like the most. It depicts ‘Private McBain at Malplaquet.’ The story goes that when Private McBain’s wife decided to return home to Scotland she handed him their infant son. Having nowhere else to put him, Private McBain put his son in his knapsack and continued to fight the battle Malplaquet. That’s courage for you.

Here’s a few more that I thought were good.

After leaving the castle we decided to climb to Arthur’s Seat. The highest peak in Edinburgh. The website I looked at said it wouldn’t take too long. It took us almost two hours to get there, climb it, take pictures, climb back down and go back to the hotel. More pictures for you.

It is a medium to hard climb for those who don’t that kind of thing to often. And it helps if you wear the correct trainers or boots. Though it is very satisfying to climb to the top of it and the views are spectacular. I’d recommend it. After this we went home and rested before going out but we only lasted for a few drinks. We were knackered.

The last full day we had, Wednesday 13th March, the sun was out and we went to Edinburgh’s old town and visited the Camera Obscura – World of Illusions museum. It was full of optical illusions, a mirror maze, a machine that let you see how would look as a baby or a caveman and loads of other things that made my head go all over the place. Here are a few more pictures for you.