mybigadventures.com

We just got in from our nice dinner out at Monteiths in Edinburgh for Valentine's day. We used open table this year to book it online which was a first having not used the service before. It added a reminder to Google calendar for me and has been reminding me all day, and the restaurant were expecting us too so happy days. Dinner was lovely, Dani had monkfish whilst I settled for some lamb with some roast potatoes on the side. Very nice indeed. Today has been a much nicer day in Edinburgh. The sun has shone all day with blue skies and mild temperatures. We've had a great time so far, visiting Holyrood Palace on Monday and the underground attraction Mary King's Close today.

It was a fairly grey day on Monday when we visited Holyrood. Sadly there aren't many photos as you aren't allowed to take them inside. We had a tour of the state apartments including those of Mary, Queen of Scots, accompanied by an audio guide to tell us what everything was. The palace was really quiet with very few people about. We finished the tour outside the palace in the ruin of Holyrood Abbey which despite its ruined state, maintains some of the structure that gives you an idea of how grand it once was. We were probably only there for a couple of hours including a visit to the cafe so still had time in the afternoon to explore a little further. We headed over the bridge to the new town and walked up Carlton Hill to see the Wellington and Nelson monuments. Reaching the top you are rewarded with a nice view back over Edinburgh and even down over Holyrood Palace. We had a bit more of a wander around before heading back to the hotel. We ate at Byron burger later in the evening as it's really close to the hotel and picked up some desserts from a bakery on the way back.

Today with the sun shining outside, we headed underground. Not the best timing, but nevermind. The Mary King's Close experience takes you underground to the site of one of the original close's of Edinburgh, some of the original buildings still exist now with valuted ceilings to support the Royal Exchange now built above. The tour takes about an hour with a guide taking you though the history of the area and walking you through a number of rooms and buildings including the narrow street that originally ran all the way down to the loch - now filled in and home of the Waverley train station. We spent the afternoon exploring Edinburgh a bit more including a walk around the Grassmarket and a walk up to the Scott monument - which had sadly closed just before we got there.

Edinburgh Castle tomorrow - hope the weather stays nice! 

Today we made a start on the shelves inside the new cupboards. The shelf supports we bought from Screwfix are the same sort that you use inside kitchen cabinets and are designed to be adjustable. I liked the idea of being able to set the shelves at different heights so in order to drill the holes inside the cupboard we made another jig out of some spare wood. Once complete we set about drilling the shelf holes.

This worked really well, and in no time we had holes drilled in all four cupboards. 

Now it was time to start painting. We stopped by Screwfix again to buy undercoat paint for all of the MDF, then took the doors off the units and got started. Dani made a start with the white emulsion, painting the ceiling, whilst I made a start undercoating the doors. The doors took two coats of undercoat on each side and with 8 doors to paint for this unit alone, it was looking like a big job. 

Hello one and all,

I hope you're all enjoying Febuary 29th, I'm not sure I know anyone that works for the National Trust and has rather nicely been given the day off so I imagine it is just another day for most of you. I thought I would mostly take the opportunity to post a little blog on here as the day comes but once every 4 years so haven't got an awful lot to say.

I'm now on the second placement of my PGCE course. I'm at a mixed school in Streatham, mostly observing this week (as its my first week here). The teaching should start to pick up over the next couple of weeks though which I'm looking forward to. Meh. I think I've run out of words really, didn't think this through perhaps I could have typed something a tad more comprehensible.

Oh last week we went to see the Natural History Museum which was rather cool - good to see they still have the big whale suspended from the ceiling and not forgetting all those dinosaur bones. We had an awesome time and took a few snaps which I may stick up here if I happen upon another spare moment. On Sunday last week we also visited the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms which was pretty cool - we managed to get in for on a 2 for 1 dealio that we cut out of the Metro (free newspaper).

I think I'll leave it there. Maybe get another update on here sometime next month.

Cheerio ta ta