The trig point of a journey

After all that garaging with bestie it was time to let our hair down and have a day out, and gosh, what a lovely day we had.  Togging up in double layers for the cold weather we drove into town to our very own volcano, Arthur's Seat.  We tried to visit back in the summer of '23 but found the high road closed; this time we were pleased to see it was open, so up, up, up to a frozen Dunsapie Loch where we parked.  It was then a fairly short but steep clamber up the slopes to the craggy summit, all worn and chiselled rock.  The wind was fresh and invigorating (especially for this headache-prone gal) and very, very cold!  But the views over Edinburgh are amazing, the Castle, Calton Hill, the Golden Turd, all the way to the Forth Bridge, the Ochils, the Forth estuary, Portobello and Musselburgh, North Berwick Law, Traprain Law, the Granites and the Pentlands.

After posing for many photographs it was time for some lunch, so we headed down and over to Fountain Park.  It's not a park and never was, but is a big cinema and lots of eateries and fitnessy places.  We only needed the car park though, and then wandered up past Laid Back Bikes and around the eastern end of the Union Canal.  Lunch we had at Kafe Kweer, which used to be The Greenleaf and was Dough-Re-Mi before that.  I sometimes buy pastries or bread there.  This time at KK we enjoyed coffee and well-filled wraps.

Duly recharged we wandered back to the canal and had a look at the lifting bridge, and then the terminus at the Lochrin Basin.  I explained a bit of the history of the area, although I'm sure the old maps will tell a better story.  Before going back to the car we went round the block to ogle some Lion Foundryana, high up on the walls of the Art Deco-styled Lothian House.

Half an hour's drive later we were back at mine, relaxing with big cups of tea and slices of EldestBaker's scrummy cake.

Since we are on holiday, we also had to go swimming, and there was time enough in the evening for a good hour.  Dodging both the children playing in the shallow end and divebombing in the deep end, and a few Slightly Competitive Dads motoring up and down a couple of the lanes, we fitted in a few lengths, then a few minutes' sauna and steam, more lengths, more sauna, more lengths and a final sauna until we were either too hot or too wrinkled!

We rounded out the day with takeaway and a TV radio dinner on the settee, and watched a few videos from yesteryear of my visit to Matlock Bath and the Tyne Tunnel, and marvelling at how the latter has changed since then!