A palatial day

Today wasn’t spent in my new home of Stirling, but rather in my old home of Edinburgh – the city I first moved to ten years ago. In fact, I spent the day with a friend from my old Edinburgh days!

I met Joanne and her three young children outside of the new Scottish Parliament buildings and from there we walked over to Holyrood Palace – a place I’ve meant to visit for ten years now but only just today made it. And what a wonderful visit it was!

Cameras weren’t allowed past the outer courtyard (other than the gardens and abbey which we didn’t see) which means I don’t have loads of photos to share, but it also means that I was looking at the paintings and tapestries with my eyes, rather than through the camera lens, which is always better. Of course, because we had three young kids with us, it also meant that there wasn’t too terribly much time for staring at stuff within each room – in fact, we didn’t even make it through the entire palace before it was time to call it good and head out for food.

After exiting the palace, we went to the royal cafe where I enjoyed an amazing bowl of mustard and mushroom soup. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it was lovely! Then it was off for ice cream cones before heading to the park to let the kids play (and the grownups visit!).

Oh, and because I purchased my ticket at the palace ticket office, it’s actually good for a full year, meaning that I can go back to see the gardens and the abbey when I have more time to really enjoy them.

I’m really pleased to have met up with Joanne today – and I’m really pleased that we’ll be able to get together on a whim now. In fact, we’ve even talked about getting together for dinner and wine when I return from England in a couple of weeks.

Anyhow, that’s really all for now. I’m still finding my feet, but am doing it with loads of activity! After all, this was my second trip to Edinburgh in as many days and tomorrow I head off to England. Yay!