Springtime in Edinburgh

It has been such a beautiful day today that Mr hazelh has spent much of it outside on his bike. I am grateful that he remembered to come home between rides at lunchtime. Otherwise I would have been locked out of the house when I returned from the gym at 1pm.

With the city looking splendid in the sunshine, it makes it easy to congratulate colleagues who move to Scotland from other countries on their excellent choice of new home town. I did so this afternoon when I met Frauke face-to-face for the first time. We had a lovely long chat at the Fruitmarket gallery café. As well as confirming expected joint professional acquaintances, we discovered that Frauke is close to one of my Canadian cousin Nick's rowing pals. In fact, Mr hazelh may well have met Gerd on one of the occasions that he joined a daybreak row on the Port Credit River near Toronto in August 2017 (see this blip by my cousin Nick's wife).

This evening I made a lamb tagine from the new recipe book that Helen gave me as a birthday present last week. As in 2020, when Helen gave me the green roasting tin book, I am going to report back to her every time I test a recipe. The lamb tagine was good, but nothing special. My review read 'Lancashire hotpot in disguise'.

I photographed this blossom in the King George V park on my walk back from the gym.

Exercise today: 1 hour on the exercise bike; swim (60 lengths); walking (18,649 steps).