Catching up with old friends in Edinburgh

Most summers we head up to Scotland for a long weekend in or around Edinburgh. Driving to Peterborough and catching an LNER Avanti train makes the trip easy, and using our Railcards and buying Advanced Purchase tickets keeps the cost down. The Sheraton Grand Hotel has become our favourite – they have great views, and a very nice pool and spa where this year I was treated to a massage. There were two special bonuses this year: first, we caught up with Richard Tench and his sister Nicola, who had lived next door to us in Watford and been good childhood friends. But we hadn’t met up face to face for over 25 years. It was lovely having dinner together in the One Brasserie at the hotel on Friday evening. Then, second, on Saturday morning we did the Open Top Bus tour of Edinburgh, including going out to Leith and visiting The Royal Yacht Britannia. The late Queen Eliabeth II had been very fond of corgis, and there were corgis all over the yacht. I manged to take pictures of 5 of them, and then bought one for myself in the gift shop – we named him Brodie.

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