Impulsively Reading Since...

Please forgive me if, at any point, you are someone who is trying to follow this chronologically. My post on Day 3 - when I visited Edinburgh Castle - is currently causing LJ to spit out an error. Out of frustration I posted the next installment which I’d already written to make sure I could post anything at all. I could. And since the last time I was amused by LJ correcting me - it turned out I was spelling ‘dalmatians’ incorrectly - well, I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Day 5 got away from me just a little bit. The plan was to visit Edinburgh’s Farmers’ Market in the morning and the Scottish National Museum in the afternoon. A couple of things conspired to set me off schedule. My left knee had been seriously protesting all the down-hilling I had done on day 4 and it continued to do so all this day as well. This means I took a bus into the city and was moving quite a bit more slowly than usual. Also, disappointed at the dearth of used bookstores I was finding on my own - oh, I bought a copy of Tess of the D’ubervilles from a charity shop on day 2 - I had marked onto the map a shop which came up when I did a google search for the area I was going to be in for the market and museum. Now, I have no idea why only one dot came up, but there was a whole handful of good stores over there. I was moving slowly, but I managed to buy a lot of pretty, pretty books. Being delayed, I found myself being thrown out of the museum at five, making a second place I have to go back to before I leave. I did; however, walk through Greyfriar’s Kirkyard before I turned for home.
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Edinburgh trip report - early April 2012 - Day 4 - Hill Walking So on this day I struck out from Edinburgh proper and took MacEwan’s Coach service to Flotterstone in order to walk the path to the summit of Scald Law. If anyone is reading this in the future looking for info on MacEwans - despite the fact that they have zero internet presence - as of April 2012 they do exist and www.traveline.com seems to have their route info correct. Their buses are a bit - vintage - and my morning driver was a bit - colorful - but I made it there and back completely safely. The fare was only £1.50 return and the bus stop was right across from the info center as well as the Flotterstone Inn. That’s the good news. The slightly less good news is that this is absolutely all that is there. Don’t make this journey expecting to add anything on to this activity of hill walking other than a (relatively) good meal or a drink. The Inn starts serving lunch at noon, but there were people in there ahead of me in the bar so they may serve drinks earlier. ( Read more )

After an additional three hours of jet lag occurring in the middle of the night, I got up on Day 2 with some vague plan of breakfast, the Surgeons’ Hall Museum - for their Conan Doyle exhibit - and then ‘something outside’. Well, after a bleary shower I realized - the Sun was out! So I hightailed it out the door and tried to make it up Calton Hill to take advantage of it.

Calton was my first thought because the second time I got lost the day before I happened to stumble across the entrance. Yup, it appears that it is a pet hill as it is contained by walls and has an entrance. So, I can prove that the sun was in fact brilliant. See below.

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Edinburgh trip report – early April 2012

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This concept is where our friends who live in Scotland, Ireland, and England have got it completely right. A pot of tea, lovingly providing me with two and a half cups of delightfully aromatic nectar, each of which I must be careful to fully blow cool before I begin sipping - I did actually typo that as shipping the first time - absolutely seduces me into taking a leisurely break with it. In america my paramour would be a bottled beverage, easily capped and taken along for the ride - the little tart.

And the loveliness of a scone! How can I possibly do this justice? Carefully cut in two, butter first, then jam carefully applied; the best lover striving mightily to carefully apportion exactly equally these tokens of love between halves. There is no possible american equivalent, our toast comes pre-buttered - as if it has been cheating on us.

Tea, I love you.

Scone, I adore you with a passion despite knowing how many calories you contain.

Love,
impulsereader

So I bet at least someone who is reading this has stumbled across bookcrossing.  Some time ago I did and I thought, 'oh neat.  I should really do that sometime,' but as with most things I didn't follow up.  And as I continue to excessively mention, I'm leaving for Edinburgh on Monday.  Pursuant to this fact I've recently been toying with the idea of trying a day trip to Kirkcudbright - making a pilgrimage to see the scenery enjoyed by Dorothy Sayers and Lord Peter.  This made me pick up my copy of The Five Red Herrings and break one of my resolutions - to not bring books with me, just pick up really cool second hand books as I discovered them in Edinburgh.  I thought, 'well just this one, so I can see if a day trip would be worth it.'  For the plane, I reassured myself.

I imagine you can see where this is going by now.  I do a lot more thinking when I'm driving than I ever suspected before.  I was musing again on the way home today about bookcrossing and had the thought that it would be fun to see if there are any books in play in Edinburgh and hunt them down during my trip.  Then it hit me.  Of course I must bring my copy, slap a bookcrossing ID on it and leave it in Kirkcudbright.  Then I need to buy myself a new copy in a bookshop in the very town.  And now I feel like I have to do this.  Before I was just toying with the idea because public transport seems to involve a long stretch by bus, and it would be intensely brave of me to rent a car because I've only ever done opposite side navigating up 'til now.  But now, I really think I have to do it because it just seems so right and it makes me so happy to think of actually pulling this off!

I'm also eyeing my Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith with a new eye but don't want to overdo it.  I'd hate to end up spamming Scotland.

Sigh.  I am trying to buy maps for my upcoming trip, but have been paralyzed by trying to decide between the OS Explorer and Landranger series.

The kicker is that there's actually an entire blog post on the OS website to address this issue and help me out.  The blog post assures me that I most likely want the Explorer for walking because it has more detail.  I read this for the first time a few months ago and happily skimmed the rest of the entry to make sure I wasn't missing anything, where I came to the two comments which had been posted at the end.  Both of them are assuring me that when dealing with Scotland I actually want the Landranger.

So here I figuratively stand, one foot on each map series, undecided.  I must buy something soon or not in advance at all.  It's very likely the place I'm staying will have some maps, but I love maps and keep them as souvenirs, and I can buy them for the specific areas I know I want to see if I can just manage to commit.  Sigh.

There is no mood - undecided?  Seriously?