Tuesday 12th of August - Neil and Helen Laidlaw's place in Edinburgh

We woke to a wet morning.
I had another cooked breakfast at the hostel: sausage, egg, tattie scone, hash brown, baked beans, haggis and black pudding. I couldn't eat all of it!

We had a walk down to Woodlands Road to see where the sliproad to the M8 was not far away, just so that when we drove the car we would get into the right lanes.

Off we went! When we got to the end of the M8 at Edinburgh we took the A720 to the Biggar Road, but turned right instead of left and got lost. Eventually we found our way back, onto the correct road and arrived at 35 Swanspring Road.

35 Swanspring Avenue

Helen and Neil

The road got its name from the fact that the area had a number of springs that, at one stage, were used to supply Edinburgh as well as Comiston with fresh water.

Spring well head

Neil and Helen Laidlaw gave us a warm welcome and went out of their way to make sure that we saw all the things that we were keen to find out about. At one time we went for a walk through Braidburn Valley Park which had been a haunt of Robert Louis Stevenson when he walked from Comiston, where Neil and Helen live, to the Pentland hills.

Braidburn Valley signpost

Pathway through the park looking back from where we entered it.

Mealtimes were great with a lovely outlook into their garden. We could see the bird feeder and a procession of birds making use of it - sparrows, finches and a pigeon. But the best of all was a squirrel that appeared.
Here is a video clip of the squirrel "up the pole" as it were:

Climbing the pole

Checking the rain gauge

On our last night they took us out to a restaurant that had been called Tusitala and is now called ......?

Neil's brother J.A.K.L. was John Alan Kinlay Laidlaw but was known in the family as Iain so as not to be confused with John, his father John (my dad's brother). Iain in Gaelic means John. He was quite artistic and quirky. Neil showed me a book of cartoons that he had drawn. They were really funny and well drawn.