Out of office on……

This week has been quite a busy one in terms of settling in to my course and getting out and exploring more of Edinburgh. Lectures are Monday to Wednesday, and one week in we already have a lot of work and reading to do which is obviously good as that's the main reason I'm here, but it's also eating in to our leisure time! So, on Wednesday evening Glenn and I shut our laptops for the night and heading into the city centre on the bus for a few drinks and tea at Pizza Express (guess who's choice that was?!) It's a really pleasant walk back to Morningside from town although the evenings are definitely getting colder now we're into October! Thursday and Friday we knuckled down and got some work done, and also had a couple of walks around the area....the roads from here over to Newington (heading east from here) have loads of lovely properties on them so it's nice to have a bit of a nosey. Unfortunately we forgot to bring our little pocket map so when we reached Causewayside road we thought that was the main Newington area, and after walking around for 5 mins we didn't think there was much on offer so we headed back to Morningside, only to have a look at the map and see that we were one street off the main Newington road! So think we'll have to take a wander back over that way next week. On Saturday we headed back up Blackford Hill to admire the views again, and then visited the Morningside Maker's Market which is held on the first Saturday of every month. There were some lovely stalls with homemade items like tartan scarves, jewellery, paintings, candles etc. We bought some highland cow coasters 🙂 We then wandered around Bruntsfield, the next little suburb up from Morningside which is another popular area with lots of local shops and cafes, before heading back to the flat for a game of crib and bottle of wine. Today (Sunday) we had a leisurely breakfast and then walked the 2 miles (ish) to Stockbridge, which is a popular area just northwest of the city centre that hosts a weekly farmer's market. The sun was shining and the place was buzzing...there were loads of stalls selling food, drinks and gifts. We obviously hadn't quite built up an appetite since breakfast as we only walked away with a small tub of tapenade!   We then had a wander through town before catching the bus back to Morningside. Can't believe we've only been here 2 weeks...feeling settled already and enjoying the flat and our explorations. Back to the studies tomorrow....