yonmei

10:43 pm: What I did today
I went to Stockbridge Sunday Market via Eildon Street and Inverleith Park. I haven't walked down Eildon Street in years: my great-aunt used to live there. The new owners have planted a hedge in what was Aunt Margaret's garden, which lets them sit by the sunny wall sheltered from direct gaze by the street: it's a very specific and local hedge, because (I presume) they don't want to block one bedroom's view of the firework shows...

I went on through Inverleith Park, which has a pond on which several grown men were playing with toy boats. (There was a cluster of them by the bank, with their controls, looking very grim as if a toy boat was Serious Business. I suppose it might be, if the boat was attacked by a swan.)

There were rumours that Artisan Roast was going to be at the market, but they weren't, so I bought myself a plain and an almond croissant to eat in the office later (but I shall try to resist in future: they aren't making any reductions whatsoever given they're selling their pastries from a market stall, and good though their croissants are, they're not £3.30 worth of good...), and had an excellent lunch of Stir-fry Yaki Udon noodles from HaraJuku Kitchen. There is nowhere to sit down - the market is just a cluster of stalls along Portgower Road, which runs from Inverleith Park to Comely Bank - so I sat down on the pavement with my back against a sunny wall and managed my chopsticks quite nicely, considering I am way out of practice. (For years, I thought I didn't like "Chinese food": it was only after friends asked me to meals at Chinese restaurants that I discovered what I don't like is the state a stir-fried meal gets into when it's stored in little foil boxes for half an hour to an hour and then eaten steamy-soggy, greasy, and luke-warm.) I suppose I could have walked back to Inverleith Park without my lunch getting too cold: next time I might do that, if they're still there next time I go.

So then I walked back via the river path to find out what was going on at the Car Free day on the Shore.

What there was, actually, was even less than Stockbridge Sunday Market: a pen had been put up for a five-a-side football game that looked uncomfortably like a cage match (I suppose they really did need the cage wall on the side by the river, or they'd have lost their football sure as fate) and a set of stalls about energy conservation on the other side of the bridge. One of them was giving away free hessian ILoveLeith bags, so I got one, and another was letting you have a free glass of freshly juiced apple juice, if you cycled for about a minute or so per glass on an old bike that was set up to power the apple juicer.

...and then I went on to the office where I brewed myself up some coffee, ate my croissants, and watched Evita while I did data processing work for several hours. I took a break between five and six when I walked up to ScotMid and bought myself some tea, because the chip shop across the road was beginning to sing wistfully to me in its siren way, and when that happens, I should probably eat something more sensible.

But I got almost all the data processing done. It's got to be all done for the 24th. Yes, that's Thursday. I have too much to do, and if I got the bulk of it done on Sunday, I could half-watch half-listen-to a movie while I did it.

I first saw Evita when it was a musical in London in 1982: my drama class went on a three-day trip to London during which we saw an alarming amount of theatre, including Evita, The Cherry Orchard, and Barnum. Plus one play we got unexpected tickets for, because (probably) it was so awfully bad. I forget what else we saw. Of the three big evening plays, the one I remember vividly is Barnum: though the songs from Evita stuck with me longer. It was odd: I vaguely knew what the plot must be from having read more history of South America since than I had then, but I don't think I ever really followed the plot of the musical till I finally saw Madonna's film. I'm interested to find that the film doesn't name Che until the credits roll up the screen and you finally (if you didn't already know) find out who Antonio Banderas was playing. (The film does not pass the Bechdel Test. The only conversation two women have is between Evita and Peron's previous mistress, and since it's a conversation in which Evita is telling her she's getting dumped, it doesn't count.)

I also got an e-mail from my sister about next weekend: she's coming up for a visit.

Tags: eating some delicious food, edinburgh, films, just my life really, lunch, walks, work

10:01 pm: Stockbridge street market: a nice walk, but
I walked over to Stockbridge street market today. It was quite a nice walk (mostly along the Water of Leith walkway), but not much of a market: a book + prints + seaweed stall (where I bought Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, and an Italian phrasebook, but no seaweed, because I really don't like seaweed very much); a jam stall run by a 17-year-old boy and his brother (I bought orange-and-passionfruit and blueberry-and-blackcurrant); a preserves stall run by someone who basically pickles up whatever there's a surplus of (I bought courgette-and-basil pickle); the French Connection crepes van, the French cheeses van (I bought 150g of cheese), and the sourdough-bread and French-pastries stall (I bought a wholemeal sourdough baguette and a croissant and resisted every single one of the pastries). There was no coffee. There were three or four other stalls selling things I was massively uninterested in. There was no fresh produce. There were very few customers.

(According to walktoit, which doesn't seem to know about the river path route, it's 4.4 miles round trip: it took me about 50 minutes to get there, a lot longer of course via Starbucks and lunch back again.)

I walked back to the Starbucks the other side of the river, mostly because they have an upstairs room which is slightly invisible and therefore the odds of finding an unoccupied sofa or armchair are higher than in all-too-conspicuous Costa) and on the way I bought The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and two packs of cupcake liners, one with skulls and one with mushrooms.

Then I sat around in Starbucks for however long it took me to re-read Little Lord Fauntleroy, say hello to the guy who works there who I know I know but whose name I can't remember, and drink a medium latte, my first coffee of the day. With an extra shot of espresso. Little Lord Fauntleroy really is an awful, awful book.

Then I walked back home, via the Stockbridge colonies, the river path, and back via Inverleith, where I sat down under a tree and ate the two scones I'd packed, some cheese, and part of the baguette.

Bumped into a neighbour as I was almost home, and came in for a cup of tea and caught up with the gossip with her and her girlfriend: bought cherries in the supermarket and ate them with the last of the white wine and a cup of tea sitting on the front step. So that was lunch. Sort of semi social. Seriously. Bumping into the neighbour was the most social contact I had all weekend, if we discount conversations with librarians, Tattie Shaw-keepers, and people running stalls at Stockbridge market. Possibly I might have had more social contact if I were better at remembering people's names.

I sort of collapsed and semi-watched Stargate Atlantis and the Simpsons in between being slightly brainded, and woke up in time to watch House.

Now I need to make goth cupcakes.



Tags: baking, support your local businesses, walks

07:11 pm: I am tired.
I didn't get enough sleep last night, but I have finished one section in my current long story that I was struggling to complete.

(The couple were never going to resolve all issues by the end of the chapter, but I wanted to make it clear that there was a strong possibility that they would resolve all issues - or at least all major ones, or at least find a way of dealing with them that worked - by the end of the chapter.)

I will be working full time as of, probably, next week. :-D Till December. And it's looking good - I mean as a job, or rather as a project.

I need to sleep more, and eat less when I'm sad, and drink less coffee, and exercise more*. (I had lunch yesterday with marrog, and I swear to you, that vegeburger still feels like it's sitting there. It was a good lunch, though, and as usual went on till about six. Not eating all the time. Indeed, we walked for part of it. And looked at henna tattoos. And afterwards I went for a very very long Edinburgh walk, out to Comely Bank and back down along to Ferry Road, which was pleasant until I thought it might actually start to rain, so I caught a 21 home. Besides, Ferry Road is boring.)

*Of course, I keep telling myself that. Sometimes it works, though.

Tags: imaginary friend meetup, walks, write write write

03:27 pm: Sheds, sunshine, and Shoshanna
My shed roof is felted again!

Thanks to the_shoshanna, who helped me carry the roll of roofing felt back from B&Q, and then stood around supporting the ladder and handing me clout nails. It really was a two-person job. But my shed roof shouldn't leak any more.

It was a lovely sunny day today. Unfortunately we spent most of it walking to and from B & Q, and Shoshanna has now declared she intends to lounge around like a lady of leisure the rest of the day, which is well-deserved.

Tags: diy, friendship, garden record, walks

08:26 am: On walking home from my parents....
It took me an hour and twenty minutes, or maybe a little less - I didn't time it to the minute or anything. ( Read more... )

Tags: family stuff, walks

05:52 pm: Ouch, my feet.
I met up with hfnuala at Cafe Truvo at 9:30, but then had to go off and find a cash machine. blue_monday, brandnewgun, and brandnewgun's partner N. turned up just after 10.

( a long walk )

Tags: breakfast is a good meal, childhood nostalgia, edinburgh, imaginary friend meetup, walks