A Wee Stroll

(With annotation by Allan "Sunshine" Guthrie.)

Yeah, it's a case of me being too busy enjoying Scotland to actually blog about how much I'm enjoying Scotland. The past three days have been fun, but also very busy. I don't think I've walked so much in my life.* Take Thursday for example. Sunshine suggests we head up to Edinburgh Castle and stroll down High Street though Old Town. Cool. We turn a corner near Grassmarket, and he shows me the stairs leading up to the castle. I take a look. Not bad, I think. (I did take a photo of stairs, but forgot my USB cable for the camera. Sorry.) I climb the stairs, only to discover another set of stairs. And beyond that, another. And quite possibly another, only I lost track, because I was feeling very light-headed. I have vague memories of school children** laughing and running past me, and at some point, a tap on my shoulder, urging me to fish the camera out of my jacket pocket so I can snap a photo of the castle, only I'm not seeing any fucking castle, I'm seeing, like, dots and lines and God and shit.*** There were a lot of stairs.

Then late Friday morning, Sunshine suggests that, instead of taking a bus across town to our lunch appointment, we take a relaxing stroll from Stockbridge to Leith Walk. Now, I have no idea how far it is from Dean Village to Leith Walk. Sure, I say, sounds good. We start walking. And continue walking. And walk further still. Sunshine tells me he's taking me the long way, so we can avoid uphill climbs. We keep walking. Finally, after what seems like days of walking, we arrive at Leith Walk. Later, I check the map. Dean Village to Leith Walk? Pretty long walk.****

But then again, Edinburgh is a really great city for walking, so I'm not complaining. In fact, today I set off alone and took a three-hour walk***** through Old Town, Princes Street, Rose Street, and then Leith Walk again. There was a half-marathon in Princes Street Gardens today; if I wasn't such an oversized bastard, I'd be tempted to join in. ******

* Really?
** That was actually a group of day-tripping pensioners from Dundee, the youngest of whom was 71.
*** That was probably the Buckfast. I told you to go easy on it till you got used to it.
**** That's nothing. A bracing stroll, just enough to get limbered up.
***** Three hours? Were you walking backwards or on your hand or something?
****** Baby steps, dude. Baby steps.