Where am I?

Set off through the Meadows today, and was sorely tempted to do another blossom blip, so gorgeous it was, with lucky people getting to walk through it to work, like they were in a film set.

I decided to go to the Botanics, because the blue skies when I got up suddenly acquired lots of billowy white clouds, some of which were turning darker. So I thought it prudent not to venture too far.

I am always a bit unsure which stop to get off at, but the buggies and crowd of people getting off at where I thought the gate was, confirmed it. I alighted and strode off up the road. About 100 yards further on, I looked around and realised that all those folk were not, in actual fact, going to the Botanics, as they were nowhere to be seen.

I carried on away up the road, daydreaming and vaguely thinking that I didn't think it was this far along. Have they moved it? Was it indeed the right road? Where am I? Yes! I spotted a cafe called the Botanics. I must be near!

I asked a lady coming my way.
'Oh no - it's away down the road this way'.

She was going that way so we walked along together. She asked if I had been before, and I pretended I was a visitor, so she she wouldn't know how silly it was that an Edinburgh resident did not know the Botanics East Gate. I was quite glad she went to her house before she could quiz me as to where I had travelled from.

So those people getting off the bus were going there after all! I should have followed them. I realised that my confusion was caused by a temporary bus stop, and what used to be before the East Gate, is now after the East Gate. Phew- I thought it was a Very Big Senior Moment! It was just a little one...

The gardens were verdant and noisy with birdsong. I watched the squabbling ducks and the lone moorhenling and mum at the pond for ages. People came and threw bread for the ducks. Mama moorhen would grab a piece of bread and take it to her baby who waited in the lily leaves. She didn't know it wasn't good for her wee one.

I sat in the sun and ate my lunch (an apple - it's my diet day) and finished off my book - The Great Gatsby - on my Kindle. I'm afraid the book annoyed me just as much as the film. In fact, having seen the film, there was no way I could ever enjoy the book, because I kept hearing the tedious dialogue while seeing the scenes in glorious swirling technicolor.

I'm off to read some decent stories now. Short stories by Edinburgh Writer's Group.