Breathe

What do you do when faced with mass hysteria? When wherever you turn you are told that a terrible virus is on its way? Where supermarket shelves are left in a shape to those reminiscent of a scene from a post apocalyptic film? Do you lose your mind and throw in with the crowd, buying up months worth of supplies where you can to see you through the long haul or do you stop, take a breath and think for a moment?
Deciding - after discussion - against letting the constant stream of terror being pumped into our brains deter us, a friend and I opted to take a day out from the new everyday madness with a trip to Edinburgh and it was a choice that, in a surprising new trend, can be added to the good choice pile.
We bathed in the brilliance of the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the spacious National Museum (one of the exhibits pictured here). We scoffed at the prices in Harvey Nichols, swerved the pretentious installations of collective at the Observatory and instead enjoyed the panoramic views over a city enjoying some late winter sun. Somehow in amongst it all we managed to fit in good conversation, a fine lunch, demolished a bag of wine gums and around 9 miles of walking. 
At no point did we stumble across the zombie apocalypse (although there were a couple of suspicious bagpipers) or rioting outside the Sainsbury's Local, but even so, the activities of the day left us tired, content and with a soul swimming with all the great things that human beings can achieve when they stop, take a breath and think.