Flying visit to the Far North
Jul. 31st, 2006 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietI spent the weekend in Edinburgh, visiting the very lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
martling. And an *entirely* splendid weekend it was.
The train up in the end took nearly 7 hrs (as well as being an hour late), so I was somewhat wild-eyed & hungry on arrival at Edinburgh at around 1am. Thankfully Martin was there to collect me+bike, & then fed me pasta & beer which improved matters significantly.
The rest of the weekend followed a pattern which has featured heavily in this summer, for it is the Summer of Sitting Around In Fields (previous heavy tendency to feature the field that is Southwark Park, with excursions also to Wasing Estate, obv, & "that field out the back ofuon's abode in the Deep South"). In this case, the fields were somewhere out in the Meadows by a lake, where we watched many swans & discussed, among other things, Shiny Flashy Things; and the airfield, where Martin explained about clouds, & about landing out, & I played 'spot the glider' (which I am not very good at) & marvelled at the quantity of sky they have up there.
The airfield trip also featured FLYING which was the ace - Martin is now able to take passengers (unlike last time I went out there) so took me up in the K13 for about 90 min. Didn't feel like that long; I was far too busy looking at all the many Interesting Things (&, briefly, when we were going round&round&round in a thermal, thinking hard about things that weren't my somewhat protesting stomach). Also demonstrated were stall turns (cool), & Going Very Fast Very Close To The Hill (very cool). Very much fun indeed, & yet another thing to put on my "I wish I had more time so I could..." list. Afterwards I helped haul gliders around, onto trailers, etc, before the lazing about in fields part of the afternoon. And then a nice relaxed pint at the station before the train home (better behaved, thankfully, than the train up).
I also got to go to the Forest, which I've been wanting to check out for ages having heard of it from various people (it is very nice, & exactly the sort of place that makes me happy; it strikes me that this is the sort of project that works better in a city the size of Edinburgh than one the size of London. RamPART may be similar but it's in the wrong place for me :-/ ); and to eat raspberry & pear crumble when Martin cooked dinner. Mmm crumble. And much time was spent just sitting around chatting, which was entirely great, as we haven't had that much time to catch up for far too long (ftb I am rub, basically).
I should remember that visiting ace people is Good, that getting out of London once in a while is Good, & that both should be done more often. I feel a damn sight better (& more relaxed) than I have in a while. I also have musings on scheduling & on work (the latter a musing I have been musing on for some time) which may or may not make it onto LJ.
The weekend also featured no fewer than 4 attempts to book my bike onto various trains. Attempts 1 & 2 failed (during the Friday-night chaos) but they let it on the train anyway (due to the aforementioned chaos); attempt 3 was successful in the sense that I got a reservation, but unsuccessful in the sense that it was for the wrong train (my fault for being incapable of correctly writing train time down in diary); attempt 4 was thankfully successful in both regards. Bringing the bike up was definitely a good plan, though; made life much easier. Although Edinburgh has *hills*.
martling. And an *entirely* splendid weekend it was. The train up in the end took nearly 7 hrs (as well as being an hour late), so I was somewhat wild-eyed & hungry on arrival at Edinburgh at around 1am. Thankfully Martin was there to collect me+bike, & then fed me pasta & beer which improved matters significantly.
The rest of the weekend followed a pattern which has featured heavily in this summer, for it is the Summer of Sitting Around In Fields (previous heavy tendency to feature the field that is Southwark Park, with excursions also to Wasing Estate, obv, & "that field out the back of
uon's abode in the Deep South"). In this case, the fields were somewhere out in the Meadows by a lake, where we watched many swans & discussed, among other things, Shiny Flashy Things; and the airfield, where Martin explained about clouds, & about landing out, & I played 'spot the glider' (which I am not very good at) & marvelled at the quantity of sky they have up there.The airfield trip also featured FLYING which was the ace - Martin is now able to take passengers (unlike last time I went out there) so took me up in the K13 for about 90 min. Didn't feel like that long; I was far too busy looking at all the many Interesting Things (&, briefly, when we were going round&round&round in a thermal, thinking hard about things that weren't my somewhat protesting stomach). Also demonstrated were stall turns (cool), & Going Very Fast Very Close To The Hill (very cool). Very much fun indeed, & yet another thing to put on my "I wish I had more time so I could..." list. Afterwards I helped haul gliders around, onto trailers, etc, before the lazing about in fields part of the afternoon. And then a nice relaxed pint at the station before the train home (better behaved, thankfully, than the train up).
I also got to go to the Forest, which I've been wanting to check out for ages having heard of it from various people (it is very nice, & exactly the sort of place that makes me happy; it strikes me that this is the sort of project that works better in a city the size of Edinburgh than one the size of London. RamPART may be similar but it's in the wrong place for me :-/ ); and to eat raspberry & pear crumble when Martin cooked dinner. Mmm crumble. And much time was spent just sitting around chatting, which was entirely great, as we haven't had that much time to catch up for far too long (ftb I am rub, basically).
I should remember that visiting ace people is Good, that getting out of London once in a while is Good, & that both should be done more often. I feel a damn sight better (& more relaxed) than I have in a while. I also have musings on scheduling & on work (the latter a musing I have been musing on for some time) which may or may not make it onto LJ.
The weekend also featured no fewer than 4 attempts to book my bike onto various trains. Attempts 1 & 2 failed (during the Friday-night chaos) but they let it on the train anyway (due to the aforementioned chaos); attempt 3 was successful in the sense that I got a reservation, but unsuccessful in the sense that it was for the wrong train (my fault for being incapable of correctly writing train time down in diary); attempt 4 was thankfully successful in both regards. Bringing the bike up was definitely a good plan, though; made life much easier. Although Edinburgh has *hills*.
