Today was a great day for me, wandering about downtown Edinburgh and then up to Edinburgh Castle. The day started nicely. I stumbled upon an Australian pub showing State of Origin live - Queenslander!! There were a lot of cockroaches there, which I realized when the Blues scored their first try. Bad luck boys and girls! There are a lot of spectacular historic buildings but they look like they need a good clean. Lots of people of all countries and languages...

Today has been a quiet day for me in Edinburgh. Yesterday's high winds across the UK caused a fair bit of damage and power outages which are in the news today. The Forth River Bridge was closed to all traffic yesterday due to the high wind hazard. There's more volcanic ash circulating over Scotland at the moment and a few hundred people spent the night at Edinburgh Airport. The Scottish accent is great to listen to but a bit wild to come to grips with. A...

Today's travel was a wet and windy trip from Northumberland through the border areas and into Scotland. The first dose of culture for the day was a visit to the Roman town ruins and display centre at Corbridge. It was wet and very windy and although much of the town was visible from behind panoramic glass windows, I did venture a quick trip outside to walk among the ruins, a very quick trip. Just down the road was a fortified manor house called Aydon Castle, a...