Poetic Cauliflower

Sometimes, you can smell the salt sea spray here in central-ish Edinburgh, a welcome respite from the car exhaust and cigarette smoke that can permeate the air as you walk along the streets. On fine, windy days, when the air is fresh, the salt might tang it, but there’s no guarantee. This past Friday, however, as I was walking home from the Omni movie theatre (where I saw the live-action Moana),…

Occasionally, I think back to the trip I took to the Isle of Skye in 2023 and remember what a beautiful place it is, with its winding roads and green, green mountains spangled with purple foxglove (and sheep).  When I visited there before, I fell a little more in love with Scotland, and it’s said that if you’re not careful once you’ve been to Skye, the Faeries will get their hooks into you, and a…

Today I took the Edinburgh tram into Leith so that I could go on a tour of the Port of Leith Distillery, across from the Royal Yacht Britannia at the Ocean Terminal. I’d been wanting to go to Leith because I wanted to see the water, so I just did a quick search of “things to do in Leith” and found the distillery.  It is the second only vertical distillery in the world.  (The other is in Sweden, I…

I know I said I was going to write about the Isle of Skye next, but my trip to the Isle of Mull and Iona is on my mind, so I’ll come back to Skye.  (I will always come back to Skye—that place is amazing.) For this trip, I took a train over to Glasgow to pick up the Rabbie’s tour which was leaving at 9.  But my train was at 6, which meant I left my flat at 5 and walked to Waverly Station at a slow…

It isn’t a trip to Scotland that I don’t spend the first several weeks sick with some kind of bronchial/ sinus issue.  I’m not sure if it’s the airplane cabin air or if I am cursed, but I have been sick since arriving.  Fortunately, I’m on the mend, but hacking, sneezing, and general achiness does not make one’s health conducive to traipsing around the beautiful spots in this beautiful country. …

It’s the end of the year which means it’s time to ruminate.  I was thinking about—well, a number of things—but especially what it’s like to lose a parent—especially one for whom your past together was complicated.  Now that Dad has been gone a whole month, I’m beginning to feel sad about it.  When he first passed, I think I was so relieved for him, that he was that off those machines and out of…

The Georgian restaurant at Harrods In the U.K., Afternoon Tea (don’t call it High Tea!) has been elevated to an art form.  It is not merely drinking a pot of tea and eating some cakes—but rather enjoying an experience of delicacies accompanied by tea and served on beautiful china with bright, shimmering silverwear. Loose tea wades in a silver teapot, just waiting to be poured through a silver…

Three years ago, I went on a Speyside whisky tour—it was the first time I had ever tasted whisky, and I was a total n00b about it.  But after the tour, I realized that I liked whisky and could see drinking it on occasion—especially on a cold, dreary night that would remind me of Scotland.  I realized too that I didn’t like peated whisky, because the smoky flavor reminded me too much of lapsang…

The only cat cafe in Scotland (I think) One of the real privations of spending the summer in Edinburgh is the lack of cats.  I desperately miss my cats back home, but I just miss cats in general.  Since Edinburgh is a city with lots of traffic, people (fortunately) don’t seem to let their cats out of doors (maybe in the suburbs, but not in the city).  Though I did see a white cat with orange…

Saturday the 14th was a soggy mess.  All of Edinburgh had as many puddles as umbrellas and lots of damp, sour faces.  But not mine.  I thrive in the rain. I had lined up the Scottish Highlands Sail, Bike, or Trail Experience (all new for 2025), which would take me to see Loch Katrine, a place I have not been before. What?  A place in the Highlands I have not yet seen?  Could this be true? It…

A fat rose outside my window My First Week Back in Edinburgh It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman on holiday in Scotland must be in want of a cold.  That’s right, I managed to get a cold and have been suffering with it for over a week. So I don’t have an amazing portfolio of pictures to show you, the way I normally do when I go to Edinburgh to teach.  Of course that will…

Now that it’s past my birthday—in other words, half-way through May—I’m feeling all the nervous energy of going back to Scotland this summer.  There’s so much to do to get ready—laundry, packing, teaching prep, laundry (did I mention that already?) and so much on my mind.  As much as I enjoy being in Scotland, which truly feels like a second home, there are adjustments to be made—in temperament,…

I’ve been reading more poetry lately.  For a while it I read all Regencies, all the time, because I want to write more Regency novels, but the last one I read was really bad.  Like, I’ve been half-way through it for two months and am wondering if I—gasp—dare not finish.  Life is too short to read bad books, I believe, but I also hate to leave a book behind.  So instead of tossing it out…