Edinburgh

Our early train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh departed at 8:30am so we were up and out before 7am, taking the slightly longer but nicer, Thameslink to St Pancras and crossing the road to Kings Cross.  We gabbed a small breakfast while watching the queue form for the Harry Pottery trolley photo opportunity (where you can pose pushing a luggage cart into a wall). There was quite a line before it opened. 

My usual apps did not pre-warn us of the platform but we boarded at Platform 2 and took our seats. The carriage was not quite full - and many of the seats were reserved further up the line - but it was nice to be able sit back  and enjoy the journey.  We couldn’t get the at seat food delivery service website to work so PY walked to get some tea.  The journey was uneventful.  I mainly listed to podcasts - ignoring both the book I had packed and the movies I had downloaded. At one point some people took the seats in front of us and tried to close the blinds but we weren’t having that as we were sat on the right side of the train for the amazing coastal views once past Newcastle. 

As the train pulled in to Edinburgh, Jez was calling to say he was waiting with Dad at the Market Street entrance where we hopped in the car and headed to the Royal Botanic Garden to meet up with the rest of the family. We drove around a little searching for a shady place to park on the street so the Easter eggs we brought didn’t melt in the sun - it was a lovely day.

We had never been to the Botanic Gardens before and they were lovely; not too busy and a nice crisp, sunny afternoon to wander around. We did start with a lunch in the cafe which was delicious and it was nice that we managed to secure a table big enough for all 8 of us to sit around. One of the surprises of the walk around was the view of the Edinburgh skyline. The picture does not do it justice.