With James powering through a cold and feeling excited to head to Scotland, albeit with some trepidation that blocked ears might not be the best thing to have when trying to understand the locals,  Lea put any worries aside:

Lea: “How are you feeling?“

James: “I‘m fine!!“

Lea: “Ok, but you sound more like Nanny Fine.“

We took a beautiful train ride through England and along the Scottish coast to Edinburgh where we stayed through the Hogmany festival with our friends from London.

Much of our time in Edinburgh revolved around searching for an appropriate amount of items made of Stewart tartan to take home. We walked up and down the Royal Mile, surprised by the amount of cinnamon sticks burning, perhaps to cover up the unusual smell of the old town. It left us wondering if there was more incense in the Royal Mile than in the Royal Line.

Shopping success was had with a scarf and a bow-tie, but there was disappointment as no Stewart undies could be found. This isn‘t overly surprising as it turns out most clan tartan undies are actually invisible.  Info that would have been useful in London when I didn‘t have my bag. The highlight came when Lea had to hand over her email address on buying the bow-tie and the giggles that came when the salesman realised we weren‘t your ordinary tartan buying tourists (each stocking up on more fabric than went into Idi Amin‘s final kilt), we were far sadder than the ordinary.

Lea, desperate to do a whisky tasting, found us a good one, where we got 5 different drams each. James knew he didn‘t like whisky, but went along anyway. Lea, one sniff in, “I cant drink any of these…“ Man flu aside, James stepped up to polish off most of the 10 drams within the hour, along the way confirming his dislike for young and smokey ones. Which is a little strange, as Lea was young and smokey when we first met!!??

We loved Edinburgh, and felt at home in the castle where our tour guide made his daily joke about asking tourists what time we thought the 1 o‘clock gun might fire (these are my people!), however the 500 year old portraits of James Stewarts in the castle, and being surrounded by 60000 kids pissing in the street to ring in the new year, left us feeling a little…auld.