Auld Reekie

Just back from a dook at Green End Gully where the sea has been whipped into a froth, a fresh, sweet end to an exciting day. At lunchtime we drove away from a small private medical clinic in a bit of a lather - Long Suffering had just passed his medical certificate for sea-farers, always a bit of worry for anyone not a vegetarian fell-runner. Feeling our way back East through Edinburgh (after London) is a bit like a combination of a benign video game and orienteering, without a Satnav, that is, and what delightful places we found, so little of Edinburgh is iredeemable, unlike parts of Greater London.  Our behaviour was pretty irredeemable however- in a traffic queue we heard a taxi hooting, and in harmony, he a tenor-baritone, me a dodgy alto, we gave voice "TW*T!!" And found ourselves ashamed because the cabbie was just attracting a friend's attention in order to have a chat. Edinburgh drivers are incredibly laid back, while I was waiting I saw a woman change her mind about her chosen turning off a mini-roundabout, so she just reversed back through the roundabout to where she came from and the set off again; the driver in the car behind just reversed to give her room and then carried on without even banging his hands on the steering wheel, a paragon of patience and compassion.

Anway, lunch outside my favourite Turkish, "Truva", in Leith, LS relaxed in the sunshine for the first time this year and Bob the greyhound enjoyed lying on the pavement and being admired. I went indoors and was smiled at indulgently by obvious greyhound appreciators; lovely when I get beamed at merely for housing a retired athlete. I wonder if Mrs Lynford Christie enjoys the same approbation.  My brother used to own a leg of a racing greyhound bitch and it was during the time that the trainers stopped injecting testosterone, I wondered if that was because of concerns about excessive facial hair.

Something about having spent 30 years in London makes me shift into warp drive when I get into a city - I wish I could just dawdle like the other tourists. I made a lightening raid on a superb cheesemongers in Victoria Street, Mellis, that is and had a great chat with the lovely boys in there.  Corra Linn is a sheeps cheese http://www.cheesechap.com/2012/04/ij-mellis-scotlands-answer-to-neals.html made in Lanarkshire, the closest I can find in Scotland to pecorino. I am making it into a wild garlic pesto with rapeseed oil, I also bought some Isle of Mull Cheddar, but the year-old Corra Linn is lovely but almost gone now. The current new stock is still deeply complex but much "cheesier", strangely, without the fruitiness and the crystalline bite of the vintage stuff. I am hoping to persuade Mellis to "cellar" one for me, just like my brother's wine merchants care for his claret. Also has the effect of stopping me eating it.