Summer!

Finally feels like summer! A gorgeous warm (23 degrees) sunny day….and perfect for the Meadows festival. I can’t imagine what would have happened if it was weather like last weekend…presumably it would have had to be cancelled. Up and had tea and toast and chatted to L&S before L, M and their kids left, then S and I got ready, moved her car and then wandered along to mooch round the festival.
It was the perfect thing to do given she wouldn’t have been up for a lot of walking after her big cycling exertion, but she was excited to find out when we stopped to admire a bike made of bamboo that the Edinburgh cycling festival started yesterday and is running till next weekend with all sorts of events on. She was also very thrilled to find an old book about the north of Scotland that was full of beautiful old maps of different parts of the Highlands and Islands. We sat down with coffees and cinnamon doughnuts for her to look through the festival programme and revel in the beauty of the fold out maps, planning another adventure to fill in the parts she’s not yet covered (Cape Wrath trail Laura?!). Whilst we sat, relaxing in the sun, we listened to rock choir giving it their all for an hour’s set on the stage. Wondered if CR would be there and although I didn’t recognise her from where we were sitting I saw her afterwards and we had a good chat and catch up.
We wandered up to show S round EFI as it was open today for tours (the cafe and restaurant are now open too….must try the restaurant out some time). She was suitably amazed!
From there we wandered home via the supermarket and had lunch of salad and various bits and pieces…she’s been surviving on camping food and was very much needing fresh fruit and vegetables!
She sorted out some of her Instagram posts and browsed her new book and I pootled for a while then set off to A&A’s party in Glasgow (stopping in Morningside for flowers and champagne). S stayed at home as she was going to a film screening as part of the cycling festival tonight…hoping to meet up with some people she knows from the cycling community.
Lovely drive as it was still so warm and sunny and the roads were pretty quiet, and arrived easily at their house which was a gorgeous massive space very near the city centre but next to a lovely shared garden. Chatted to some very interesting people…an artist moving into enamelling and his partner who was a journalist and yoga teacher. Turns out she works for an adventure company writing for their website so was interested to hear about S’s adventures.
Also chatted to a retired medic about travel, universities, the infirmary’s transformation into EFI since he worked there, philanthropy and opera, and to a mathematician who works on predicting ‘when the lights go out’ (in a climate catastrophe sense I assume!). By then the DJ had started up, the room was filling up and the noise was getting too much. I decided not to migrate to the kitchen or hallway as some had done but slipped away and was home in good time. Chatted to S who’d enjoyed the film and to Ad who’d just arrived back having crossed paths with his parents driving between here and Winchester. He’s between flats at the moment and having difficulty finding a new one so is back to search.
We watched an episode of Scotland’s house of the year then all turned in. Lovely day!