Breakfast at Peter's Yard

Edinburgh is built on seven hills, which makes for a great work out on two wheels.

Not that I can let you think for a moment that I climbed all of them this morning, it just felt like it.
With 12 uphill miles on the clock and shaky legs I made it home at 7:45 to meet up with his Lordship who had been showing off his pecs in the gym.

The suggestion was that we would repair to Peter's Yard for breakfast, except that in the event, the breakfast was downgraded to a coffee and a hot chocolate.
But at least we got time to sit and people watch as the clientele gradually built up.
Here are two of them with their dogs.

Now for my Sunday rant.
Having negotiated the aforementioned 12 miles over roads which would be a disgrace in third world countries, I feel strongly that if a fraction of the millions being spent on a tram system that few people want and which will replace a perfectly adequate bus service, were to be invested in road maintenance, the highways and byways might begin to do justice to a capital city.

Instead the arterial roads bringing visitors into the city are a mass of potholes, patchings, and uneven eroded surfaces, not to mention the plethora of service drains placed seemingly willy nilly in the cycle lanes. In short, an absolute disgrace, and quite lethal to cyclists obliged to hold their line in traffic.

There are some downhill bits of the road, where it is physically hard to keep a grip on the handlebars, so rough and uneven is the road surface.

Meanwhile the city fathers are happy to spend a billion pounds, twice as much for half the distance first mooted, on a tram service which will transport people from the airport and spit them out in Princes Street. It can't be more than 5 miles and the airport bus does this pretty well anyway.

I'll stop before I need to mention the Scottish Parliament building and have to lie down with a cold compress on my forehead.

But I have to announce that it's not raining here - yet.