Not a Leith Walk shop

You'd expect, with a blip of this style, that it was a Leith Walk shop, but no it's a South Bridge restaurant.

It's been around an immensely long time (since 1990 according to the website) and to be honest I've not been in there since shortly after I arrived in Edinburgh. It was always the favourite of our late lamented friend and colleague NMcC, and he used to insist that we went there after workshops and seminars which I used to attend in Edinburgh before I became a staff member here, and to be honest his colleagues used to laugh at him and suggest it was not awfully good. It might have been because those key staff members, both now retired, had at that time spent 6 months in Italy relatively recently. So in that sense, it didn't match up terribly well. I liked the idea it is still "open as usual", because - despite its proximity to Old College - it remained somewhere that most of us would turn our noses up at. And I thought the pandemic would do for it. But no, I see it has also been a "restaurant of the year".

Closer inspection of its website also seems to reveal somewhere quite decent, although it is possible that the website is smarter than the actual venue. Next time Mr A and I are stuck in town after an event and want somewhere for a quick dinner, we should try it!

I had a long and inevitably pretty tiring day. Early peloton, then quickly in to work for a meeting that turned out to be postponed until later in the morning. Other meetings came and went, and then I trekked over to ECA for a big meeting - the first one of its kind with the new boss. It seemed to go well. Back in time for another meeting. The sort where you don't take any notes.

Out of the office and I found Mr A waiting on South College Street. I jumped in the driver's seat and jumped out again less than four hours later (notwithstanding the delays generated by the Edinburgh rush hour) in Tain. It was very quiet north of Perth, although there were some periods of following lorries bowling along at just over 50 which were a bit tedious. I'm not a confident overtaker in the dark and there have been so many fatal accidents on the A9 that I think prudence and patience are the two women to follow.

It's already a well worn routine to get everything from the car into the house. We are still taking carfuls of stuff up there as we turn it from a house to a home. Getting there slowly. It was less cold and damp feeling than I expected after three weeks away. We sat and had a beer from the cold box, which we use to bring stuff backwards and forwards to avoid wasting food, before retiring to bed. [For the record, I slept well, although it took a little bit of time to get to sleep, but much better than the first night here on the previous two occasions, which I am sure is a strong sign of settling in].