Hello Edinburgh!

As you may have read in MANY previous posts, I'd been trying to book a break for Matt and I for a good couple of months but due to my fussiness it had become a bit of an ongoing saga

I'd had about enough of torturing myself over it, so I told Matt I was going to book our 'usual place', The Crab & Lobster (highly recommended by the way!) He rebelled and insisted he wanted to go to Edinburgh, which made it slightly easier for me - now all I had to do was find a hotel. A lovely reader called Polly commented on this post and mentioned a couple of places which I checked out and ... booked one!

We'd decided it was too far to drive so we only drove to Doncaster and took the train from there. We spent two nights at a hotel called Tigerlily in the city centre

There was a lovely fire, the mini bar from heaven, fluffy robes and White Company goodies in the bathroom and even a decent hairdryer and a pair of GHDs

We got to Edinburgh on Tuesday afternoon and after stowing our bags in our cosy room we popped out for a look around the shops and to find somewhere to eat. After an early dinner and a couple of cocktails we hightailed it back to the hotel and raided their DVD library. Watching a film in front of the fire in our PJs whilst tucking into a box of Hotel Chocolat's finest and burning my new Winter candle ... we're a real pair of adventurers aren't we??

After a hearty Scottish breakfast on Wednesday morning (including haggis - I didn't like it!) we trundled off to see what Edinburgh had to offer us. We had a wander round to get our bearings and found our way up to the castle. Sadly the weather was pretty rubbish, misty and damp with a fine drizzle that saturated our clothes and made my hair go wild!

The castle was beautiful and I really enjoyed learning about it's history

We visited the Scottish War Memorial which was very sombre and peaceful and were lucky enough to see the changing of the Guard

We stopped at the little whisky shop and saw a bottle of whisky which cost £8000!

We saw some beautiful views of the city

And a little cemetery for soldier's dogs, which was so sweet. The little graves brought a lump to my throat

We wandered down the Royal Mile and popped in to The Witchery to see if we could get a table for that evening, sadly we couldn't unless we wanted to eat at 10.30pm. That's late even by our standards! Maybe next time. We stopped for mulled wine at a gorgeous little pub and saw Canongate Kirk where Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall got married. I am a huge fan of the Royals!

That night we ate at a gorgeous little restaurant called Wildfire which I found on Trip Advisor. The food was delicious. I had stovies with beetroot and oatcakes, followed by steak and ale casserole. Matt had smoked haddock, salmon and prawn chowder, followed by a surf & turf. We really wanted a cheeseboard too but were just too full. Sorry I didn't take any food photos, I just can't bring myself to take photos in a restaurant!

On Thursday morning we had breakfast in bed whilst watching a film again! Another full Scottish for Matt and eggs benedict and coffee for me. I should have taken photos but we were in a bit of a rush to get checked out! After breakfast we headed off to do a bit more shopping before catching our train home.

I was really shocked to see homeless people on so many street corners in Edinburgh and even more surprised to see how many of them had dogs. This is a real bugbear of mine - I believe that if you can't look after and provide for yourself then you shouldn't have a pet. Many do it to pull on your heartstrings, for monetary gain and I think that's wrong. On the way to the station we saw a man with a dog which he had trained to hold his cap out to people for them to put money in. It absolutely broke my heart - the woebegone expression on the dog's face brought tears to my eyes which didn't stop until we were on the train. It's just so wrong. If that man cared about his dog he would put it before himself and find it a suitable home. Gah!

Homeless dogs aside, we had a great time in Edinburgh! It was lovely to get away from the day-to-day stresses of the house build. I'm not exaggerating when I say it has taken over every waking moment of our lives. It's literally all we talk about - we're so close to finishing now that the fine details are becoming all important and we're having to make decisions virtually every hour - to a deadline because the next tradesperson is already scheduled in. This is tortuous for someone as indecisive as me so the chance to put some distance between us and the house was really welcome!