Too cool for school

A meet up. Real people! How exciting is that? It really lifts your mood to meet with good friends, in a socially distanced manner. Our original idea (to meet with meles and DaveH to exchange some books we each wanted to borrow) was to meet on the Links. Too busy, said the discerning meles, on coming back from the allotment, what with various groups of young men who perhaps might attract the attention of the polis. Not for us. DaveH (lapsed blipper of this parish) suggested the North Leith Kirkyard, giving us the advantage of not only being extraordinarily cool (under the trees) but also of inspecting the tombstone of the grandparents of WE Gladstone.

But that was before DaveH turned up, and outdid everyone with his coolness. I was most impressed.

Afterwards, we made our own pasta from scratch, which was huge fun (and much quicker than I had expected) (see extras, including improvised pasta rack), and we ate it whilst drinking a nice bottle of chianti. Combined with a 6.30am walk around the parades and time spent on the balcony drinking coffee and reading a book, and finally a superb lecture by William Dalrymple from Hay (available until 1pm tomorrow), this made for a thoroughly satisfying and, of course, sunny day.