A day by the water

The ladies had a number of errands to carry out in Edinburgh today, so I took the car and set off for Dr Neil's Garden in Duddingston, on the south-east edge of Holyrood Park. It sits on the edge of Duddingston Loch - see extra - and has a most interesting history. There's far too much to mention here, so here's the link to the website - https://www.drneilsgarden.co.uk/

Apart from a paid Head Gardener - she was away today - the garden is maintained by volunteers, and needless to say, I spent a long time chatting to them! The garden sits behind the 12th century Duddingston Kirk, which is my Blip today. There's an astonishing collection of plants here and I spent a long time looking round.

Next door is a large community allotment known as Jock Tamson's Gairden - see https://www.jocktamsonsgairden.org.uk/   I spent quite some time here too, both looking around and chatting with the manager, Liz. As I was leaving I heard someone call my name and looked round to see a man with his two young daughters. He used to work for the NTS too, and remembered me from ten years back. He was meeting another ex-NTS member of staff and when she turned up we had a good blether about the Olde Days! 

After that I drove east to Musselburgh and parked down by the harbour at Fisherrow. Once an historic fishing harbour, it's now mostly used by leisure craft. After having my lunch on a sunny seat I walked down to the end of the eastern arm where a bunch of schoolkids were daring each other to jump into the harbour. My second extra is of three girls who stood on the edge for ages, trying to pluck up courage to jump in. When they jumped I wasn't really ready for them so was pleased to catch them!

After leaving Fisherrow I drove back through Edinburgh and spent an hour or so at Saughton Park before returning home to Daughter Two's flat. A great day - I must have spent some two hours of it talking!