Le désespoir des singes

Our day out with our French friends was almost ruined before it even began. This was due to a mix-up between my Outlook calendar in Edinburgh and that of my friend Boyd in Midi-Pyranees. I'd booked lunch at Roseleaf for 12:30, and this information had been kindly 'translated' to 13:30 in Boyd's calendar. There was quite a scramble when I saw a text from him at 11:45 that said 'See you at 13:30'! Fortunately we still managed to round everyone up quickly and all met at the restaurant at the appointed time.

In our party were Boyd, Marie-Françoise, Camille and Tess and their friends Philippe and Claudette. After a delicious lunch (most of us had lamb) we walked from Leith to Stockbridge along the cycle paths and through the Botanic Gardens, stopped off at Bon Papillon for tea and scones, then picked up the route again to visit Dean village, and returned to our flat through the New Town. We were back in time to watch the French election result on France 2, then all gathered around the kitchen table for supper of homemade soup and bread.

It's been a fun day, but also a rather long one for me because before we met everyone for lunch I had already spent six hours at my machine. I'm still wrangling the University's research management system :-(

We learnt in the Botanic Gardens that the French for 'monkey puzzle tree' is 'le désespoir des singes'. This really tickled me because it says so much about the difference between British and French perspectives on life. While a British monkey might find the strange leaves of this tree a little bizarre, their French cousins descend into despair.

Exercise today: walking (19,585 steps).