Edinburgh - Month 1 (RTW)

Hello to one an all.

Ok to get the boring stuff out of the way. We have got phone and internet finally
(so more acquiring through dodgy circumstances) and the flat is running well. Job front: Meaghann has got a job at a nursery across town (30min), Phil got a job working at Sun Microsystems in Linlithgow and Katherine is driving down to the Borders district everyday for her SALT job (Speech and Language Therapist). Me, well I’m still unemployed.........but that’s ok should have a job within the next couple of weeks. I have got an interview on Monday week and a couple of other very good prospects in the pipeline.

Katherine's 1st day of work with our new car

Amongst doing all of the setup and job stuff we have done heaps of walking which is great! We absolutely love this place as you can walk practically everywhere. Katherine and I made a trip up to Glasgow to get a car which was a bit of a steal. However we think he was a bit of a dodgy bloke, only accepted cash and the car didn’t have any insurance or city tax. Now if you don’t have city tax then you are not allowed on the road and you can’t even park your car on the road. Ok so after we got the car back to Edinburgh (we thought we weren’t doing anything wrong at this stage) we went to get city tax so at least we could park it on the road. Well they said that we couldn’t get tax cause you need to have insurance first. So we quickly jumped on the net and got ourselves some insurance. However you have to wait until your certificate is sent out before you can get city tax. Now they have these ads on the TV here where if you haven’t paid your tax your car can get crushed into a little cube, well we didn’t want to take that chance. So we drove the car out to the airport and paid for parking there for a week, and then caught the bus home. We got home about 9pm on the Friday night. Well on Monday we went and got our parking permit (to park on the street around our area) and then on Thursday our certificate arrived so we were up to the post office as quick as possible to get the tax done. We were all set now, we just had to go back out to the airport and pick up the car.

Edinburgh Dungeon

Everybody was off for my birthday on the 1^st of feb so that was great. We had this huge trip planned that we would go up to Inverness (top of Loch Ness) and do a big trip to some distilleries as well. Well that didn’t happen as on the Friday they had huge gust of winds and they told everyone not to drive if they could. Up near Inverness they were having winds up to 80mph! So instead we decided to go to the Edinburgh Dungeon. Now this was quite fun as it is like a ghost tour through a haunted house but it has got some of the history of Edinburgh. The great part was there was a group of young girls and they jumped at everything. For some reason I kept on getting picked on.....don’t know why. There was this one section which was about these to blokes who use to kill people so the students could study anatomy. Anyway fake body...she pull out a fake heart (looked like a potato) and comes along the line and asks me to kiss it. So being the person I am.......I did much to her surprise and said that no-one had actually kissed it. Later that night we came home and had Indian for dinner very yummy and I opened some really nice gifts.

Stirling Castle

On Saturday (2^nd) we went on a tour out to Stirling. This is a place with heaps of history! We went to the battleground where Robert the Bruce defeated the English army. We then went up to the Stirling Jail and went on a tour there.....very very cool. We then got a year’s pass to the Historic Scotland society (which lets us into heaps of castles and places) and went to the Stirling Castle. Next time we go out there we’re going to go to the Wallace Monument.

We had a lovely dinner for Meaghann's birthday however she had her first day of work which I guess was a pretty good birthday gift. We had a great night where we all chipped in and made pizzas and then watched a movie. A very nice and relaxing night was had by all.

Jedburgh Abbey

Last weekend Katherine took us on a tour of the Borders district (her work district) and it was great it is a lovely area down there. We went to the Kelso abbey and then drove to Jedburgh and went to Carter’s Rest where Katherine mother use to work a few years back. We also went to the Jedburgh abbey and that was amazing. We had a fun drive back and by the end of the day everyone was very tired.

One other thing is I'm drinking and enjoying ale and whiskey!!!! Not together at the same time. Some every weekend at least we try a new ale and have a quite whiskeys to finish off the night. It is sooooo goooood.

Anyway sorry it has been awhile since I have updated you all and I will try to do it more regularly. Until next time I hope you and your family are keeping well and are in good health.

Cheers,

Dan