It is marvellous how much better 10 hours of sleep makes you feel.

I am staying in the Royal Mile Hostel in the room 'Fridge' in the bed 'Corona'. When the girl at the desk told me, I felt heavy in my stomach. This was going to be a party room and I was not going to get any sleep.

As it turned out, I was sharing the room with a Malaysian couple, an Israeli couple and two girls from France. I slept through everyone coming to bed and I slept through everyone leaving in the morning.

I still secretly wish I was in the room 'Star Wars' in the bed 'C3PO'.

I set out in the morning, planning to walk to Arthur' Seat. I got to the foot of it (on the 'wrong' side), looked up and decided I couldn't be arsed. I had other excuses, like it looked like it was going to rain, but that didn't explain why I turned back and sat on that black seat you can see there and drank maté and read a book.

And watched some jaunty birds.

I visited the Edinburgh museum because every place we went to in Orkney they said, 'We had a fine example of BLAH, but it is in the Edinburgh museum now'. Even with directions and a map I found it a really frustrating museum and couldn't find the stuff I was looking for, the way they set up the exhibits followed a system that I sensed had an internal logic, but left me baffled and a little bit cross.

I did happen upon the drop spindles, though.

Can anyone explain the little naked dude doing some blacksmithing? I have done some blacksmithing and I would tend towards heavyduty, flameproof clothing that covered as much as possible. And safety goggles.

















I went to the Elephant House where J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter because, well, you know. After I stood in line for 10 minutes, waiting to get in, I decided it probably wasn't worth it and went across the road to the villager instead. They had delicious, creamy, garlicky hummus. I can recommend it.

It rained and then the sun came out.

On the way home, I passed Ciao Roma. They had icecream in their front window. Award winning icecream. The apple flavour is sprightly and the chocolate flavour wants to be your friend. Gave Esfahan a run for its money and I recon Jamie would have to think hard about Amsterdam and whether it still stacked up.






















Tomorrow Nottingham.