Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Today was a really grey, rainy, and ultimately very windy day, with some delightful patches of sunshine in between — welcome to Scottish weather, our tour guide said! Fortunately, our first part of the day was in a bus going around some of the sites of Edinburgh, seeing the old and new towns (‘new’ started about 1750 or so!), out to the Forth of Firth bridges (there are 3; the most famous one is a rail bridge), through Stockbridge, and then we were dropped near Edinburgh Castle. From there we walked back down the Royal Mile — some went back to the hotel, some went on to lunch, some went shopping.

The next activity was a talk and workshop by a kilt maker, who was French! Just when we’d got our ears attuned to the Scottish accent, now we had to contend with a French one as well. He and his partner make all their kilts by hand and it took them 9 months to learn the techniques. After explaining a lot about when kilts in their modern form were first worn in Scotland (not until about 200 to 300 years ago), and what the highlanders wore before that, he showed us some pleating and answered the heaps of questions we asked. Each kilt (the skirt part only) takes about 8 m of tartan (wool), and is quite heavy, as you’d imagine. But he said once it’s on, you basically don’t feel it because the weight is taken by the hips. And yes, back in the day the rumours were all true, though he thinks most who wear the kilt these days do wear underwear beneath them. Then it was our turn — we each got some yardage of different tartans and had to make pleats based on the patterns. That was much harder than he made it look, but we had a lot of fun doing so.

We didn’t finish until after 5pm, about 30 mins before the next thing – the Real St Marys Close tour.

Unfortunately my feet really started playing up again today (blister on the ball of my right foot in the same place that I had in London) and my left pinky toe being squeezed into its neighbour — I’ve tried various toe separators and I thought the silicon one I bought at Boots yesterday might solve that issue, but no. At lunchtime I came back to the hotel to change shoes and socks, add a blister protector, but that didn’t help either. So I was really hobbling badly when we left the tartan thing. I bailed on the St Marys Close thing as many steps and more walking was involved.

I’m now back in the hotel, and will join the group for dinner when they return, and because dinner is in the hotel, I’ll probably just go in my socked feet, or barefoot (or my Crocs!). It’s amazing how two small things on your feet can cause so much pain and prevent you from doing so much. (yes, I know, First World Problem!)

Update: This pic was taken a couple days later after the blister on the ball of my foot had burst—for the second time on this trip.