cottage holiday

From September 2nd - 9th, the four of us stayed near the city of Bath (so named after the Roman bath built on the site of the only hot springs in Britain).



This week away was my birthday present from David, so I'd been looking forward to it since April! I was not disappointed. We had a lovely time.



We stayed in a cottage called The Parlour, a stone building on this former dairy farm (1640- 1960!) converted from a milking parlour to comfortable human accomodation.



There were fruit trees on the property from which we picked apples and had plums. The pears weren't quite ready yet. There was also some playground equipment and, most wonderful of all, a 10' trampoline! Soli spend about an hour a day just bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.



And he wasn't the only one!






Incredibly, David actually managed to get some work done while we were there. What a difference wirelessness makes!

Ed Fringe

During the last weekend in August, we spent a weekend at the Edinburgh Fringe festival (www.edfringe.com).

This was Kori's (July) anniversary gift to David, complete with accommodation and tickets to 5 shows (including comedy, drama, physical theatre, music, and more comedy). I didn't take pictures of the performances, but here are a few snaps of Edinburgh (say «EH duhn buh roh») to enlighten those who haven't been there as to the look of the place.

Edinburgh is the capital and second largest city of Scotland. The original name of the city was Dineiden, "fortress on a hill". You can see why, when you look up at the oldest edifices from the streets below.

The glass roofing at the bottom of this pic is part of the train station, where we arrived after the 5-hour journey from London. It was amazing to have 10 hours in 3 days to read & look at scenery. It was rather a shock to have so much time to sit still and to be away from our children, who spent the 3 days and 2 nights with Grandma & Grandad-- to whom we are very grateful!



Edinburgh Castle is to the top left of this photo (below). I'd like to go back to see the historical sites sometime, as we couldn't fit that kind of thing in while going from show to show at the festival, which takes over the whole city.



This pic is just a random shot taken from one of the bridges going over the Firth of Forth, which runs through town. What I noticed most about Edinburgh's appearance was the high concentration of very old buildings. There are many of these in London, of course, but there is a higher proportion of newer buildings in London: They were built upon the gaps left by bombing in WWII, which Scotland did not suffer. Edinburgh is "the largest area of Georgian architecture in Europe" (source = http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/tour/edintour.html).