In the pink

Lovely family meal out in Edinburgh today. One of Mr B's cousins is retiring to Italy so we went to Oloroso (which for non-Edinburghers is what you might call a quite fancy restaurant, but not scarily so). In a very interesting divide the cousin and wife (who have always lived in England) drank little and ate normal food. The Scottish contingent (which I seemed to be included in today) drank lots and ate curry.

Once sober, we got the train back to the car and headed to the Happy Pigs Farm (no, that's not its real name) to pick up dinner. The kids always like to say hello to the pigs. This is my first effort with the selective colouring thingy. Not the best subject but fun anyway.

It's been a while since I had any rants on here (I think), so here's two for the price of one:

1. In the restaurant a service charge is added for large parties (like us). Despite being asked this question directly, a senior waiter told Mr B senior (who kindly paid) that service was not included. Mr B junior had to make a fuss - to get them to admit that the line on the bill that read "Service......£30" meant that service was already included. And then had to go and ask the manager to come and apologise to his dad. After such a lovely meal, it was kind of a shame to end it that way. (Mind you, they were out of three of the four wines that we asked for during the meal, and made Mr B wait a pointless 20 minutes before allowing him to have his cheese (I mean - how long can it take to slice some cheese???) so maybe we should have been quibbling with even one service charge!)

The 'including service charge but leaving the slip open' trick is one that bugs the hell out of us: I'd much rather have no charge included ever so I can leave cash and be more reassured that it will get to the people who do the work rather than the bosses.

2. Mr B needed a loo in the station. He had a choice between one costing 20p and one costing 30p. Paying to pee is just plain wrong. After all, if you want people not to pee in the street, give them somewhere else to do it. Top tip for anyone else stuck in Waverley in similar need but without change: hop on a train that's not leaving for a few minutes and use that loo.

Rants over!

Backblips:
Thursday's tower is fair of face
Friday's couple is full of grace

New blip resolution: no more backblipping without a seriously good excuse...