Playing with Hugin

(From my QG Exploration pictures - outside Edinburgh Castle)

Truprint Offers - Cheap Photo Prints

Having realised that getting some prints done for my Queen's Guide exploration photos would be a good idea I thought I'd check out prices online. Having used Truprint before and not found anything new and cheap in a quick Google search I thought I'd check out the offer sites for some promo codes. Found two codes, both of which give you 50 prints at 1p each - bargain! I think I'll have a lot of photo uploading to do when I get home :o)

Edinburgh: Saturday

Lizzie left early this morning but Tom, Lyndsay and I figured since we were so close that we should probably make an attempt to get the rest of the board:

• University of Edinburgh (Red)

Following last night's card games, we made a fairly relaxed start to the morning. When we did get out, we headed out into the university quarters to try and find the Labyrinth in George Square. Immediately after stepping out of the hostel we stopped to shop across the road - I'm too easily attracted by shops with pretty colours in the window and was lucky to come out with only a skirt! Sadly, when we did find the labyrinth (despite the wind that came suddenly from nowhere to blow us every direction except the one we wanted to walk in), it was closed: only open weekdays. As expected, the labyrinth wasn't full height - it was difficult to tell from the gates whether it was simply line markings on the floor or had a couple of inches of height but I suspect the former. I've never done a labyrinth before so it was a little disappointing to find it closed, that said I can't quite see how you could simply walk and think if you had to look at the floor to see where the path goes! Anyway, here we are in front of the rather grubby sign:


Whilst we were at the university, we also ducked into the foyer (shelter - hurrah!) of their new Informatics building - originally we thought it was in use but looking closer it was quite clear the building hadn't opened yet. So, all done at the university we picked off the last two:

• George Street (Orange)
  
• Princes Street (Purple)

George Street has statues at every junction (or at least I think it's at all of them) but the statues are in the middle of busy junctions (obviously) so didn't really make for great photo opportunities - instead we took our picture looking down the road with the hope of getting many of the statues in... I'm not sure we succeeded.


We'd walked up Princes Street many times throughout the exploration but never stopped for a photo. There's plenty to see along the road and many of the bits of it are in other photos but we hadn't had a picture for the road itself so we stopped to get one with the castle in the background.

All done, we stopped back off at Lady Stairs Close and did the Writer's museum there, visiting the folk music shop we'd seen doing the Bank whilst on the way. After the Writer's museum we headed back to the hostel via the Cathedral (some lovely stained glass but no photos allowed inside without the purchase of a permit) and the Museum of Childhood which was just across the road (that place is a maze - I nearly missed most of it!).

Edinburgh: Friday

On Friday, Lizzi took the reins. Friday's plan was to start with the castle but we also managed to use the opportunity to pick up one which we were passing on the way:

• Lady Stairs Close (Blue)
  
• Edinburgh Castle (Purple)

We almost walked past the entrance to Lady Stairs Close without spotting it. Edinburgh (Old Town) seems to be filled with these little tiny dark lanes, all with curious sounding names. Lots of them are mentioned in the haunted Edinburgh book Lyndsey bought.


After lots of short stops on the previous two days it was nice to get a really good look at the castle. I think we covered almost all of it, the exceptions mostly being the Military Museums. I took quite a lot of photos - I'd like to have a go at making a panorama with them.


Following the castle, our plan was to get some lunch and then do the dungeons. We had a little bit of time to kill as it wasn't quite lunchtime yet. Lizzi fancied visiting the Guide shop so we went in search of that - unfortunately it was as far from where we were as it conceivably could be! On our way we also got some photos for a couple of the other board spaces:

• Edinburgh Waverley (Station)
• Bank of Scotland (Community Chest)
  

A happy accident - we found the Bank of Scotland (just over the road from a folk music shop that we nearly visited). Looks like they've got a museum there which I hadn't realised from all my scouting around - I had enough problems trying to work out where it was!


Having completely failed to find a good picture of Waverley on either of the occasions we'd visited to catch a train, we a really nice view from a bridge on our way from the Castle. I stopped to take quite a few pictures here knowing that, if nothing else, Hobnob would appreciate them!


When we did find the Guide Shop I picked up some Holiday badges for my Brownies and an Edinburgh cloth badge for my camp blanket. Walking back it was now definitely lunch time! Once done with lunch, it was on to the dungeons:

• Edinburgh Dungeons (Prince's St/Go To Jail)

We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the dungeons and it didn't occur to us to take anything outside (though I don't remember there being much to look at outside) so there's nothing to show here. According to a rather hysterical drama student (who totally broke out of character once Tom said he was Coventry) I spent last night dancing naked singing chants - and I thought we'd just been playing cards. All done at the dungeons, we headed out to Holyrood:

• Holyrood (Red)
• Scottish Parliament (Green)
  
• The Royal Mile (Yellow)

Holyrood itself is a fairly busy area in terms of attractions, hosting the Palace of Holyrood, the Queen's Gallery, the Scottish Parliament, Arthur's Seat and Our Dynamic Earth. As the Scottish Parliament already features on the board we'd decided to use the Palace in the photos but it was a little dark and I struggled to get good pictures.


Having wandered a little in confusion, we eventually discovered that we'd come in past the Scottish Parliament - clearly none of enough know enough about politics to know what the building looks like. Sadly it was far too big for any really effective photos and the poor light didn't really help, but here's a bit of it!


Holyrood is also the start of the Royal Mile.


Having made a plan to pick up those four we'd thought about getting yesterday, we headed out towards FountainBridge for dinner:

• Grindlay Street (Yellow)
• FountainBridge (Red)
• Rutland Court (Green)
• Charlotte Lane (Yellow)

Grindley Street was a nice easy find and we got a quick picture outside the theatre there.

From Grindley Street we carried on to FountainBridge for tea at an Italian restaurant. A proper city restaurant, the kind I miss from London.

On our way back, we picked up the last two far out ones (or at least something that approximated to them). We couldn't find a Rutland Court - but got a Rutland Court Lane which must have been pretty close.
For this final night, our dormitory for six now had another two guests in it so we headed down to reception to play cards - Mau again. Having been thrown out of the reception around 11:30pm (because they were closing up, not because we were behaving terribly!), we found a spot in the corridor instead and attempted to keep the noise down whilst playing Coffee Pot. I think it was around 2am when Tom, Lyndsey and I went to bed!

Edinburgh: Thursday

Starting out with a few quick ones to pass the time until cheap day trains:

• St. James Centre (Orange)
  
• Prince's St. Gardens (Blue)
  
• The Meadows (Brown)

We got up somewhere around 8am, collected ourselves together and nibbled on whatever bits of breakfast we'd bought yesterday. Starting out with the little ones, we headed back to the St. James Centre (which we had passed on our way back from the quays the previous day) and got a quick photo outside. We did stick our heads into the centre but there wasn't anything hugely inspiring shopping-wise and there would be plenty more opportunities as all three of the oranges were shopping related.

With most of an hour still to go before we could buy cheap-day tickets, we moved on to do Prince's Street Gardens. The plan here being that we could spend some time looking at the various things in the park and optionally go up the monument (but probably not given the excellent views we had got from the museum roof the previous day). Unfortunately when we got to the Gardens it turned out that they were closed for some sort of work (it looked like they were dismantling a Fairground in one bit but I don't know if that was all). We stopped at the gates (guarded by a builder) and took a picture.
From Prince's Street Gardens, we walked along a little further to The Meadows (which we could get into) and walked around there. We got a good view of the Castle and of an overly tame squirrel that sat in the middle of the footpath.
All done with the gardens, and once train prices had dropped it was time to get the awkward one out of the way:

• The Forth Road Bridge (Station)
• Edinburgh Haymarket (Station)

Getting to the Forth Road Bridge was always going to be one of the most challenging of the spaces. Without a car, we could 1) try and find a bus/taxi to cross the bridge 2) take a train over the rail bridge 3) see if any boat trips passed under the bridge. Train seemed the simplest option here as there's a station just the other side of the bridge. At only about £3 for ticket to North Queensferry with a student railcard, this was also a reasonably cheap option. Getting to North Queensferry we had about 15 minutes spare before the return journey so we wandered down the road to see if we could get a better view of the road bridge.
Coming back from North Queensferry, we got off at Haymarket which gave us that station and placed us at a different part of Edinburgh to better get those spaces off to the side.

We had therefore planned planned to do:

• FountainBridge (Red)
• Grindlay Street (Yellow)
• Rutland Court (Green)
  
• Charlotte Lane (Yellow)

However, whilst these spaces formed a nice cluster around Haymarket station they still left us with four rather awkward ones to get. So instead we did:

• Murrayfield (Pink)
• Tynecastle Statium (Pink)

These two stadiums aren't terribly far from Haymarket but are in the direction away from Edinburgh. Very close to each other too.
Having got these two it was time to get the last two really awkward ones:

• The Gyle Centre (Orange)
  

• Lauriston Castle (Blue)

Starting out with the Gyle Centre to give us a place for lunch. Both these two were to be done by bus so we bought an all day ticket. Arriving at the front of the Gyle we easily found the food court and each picked out something to eat. Having decided that this was the shopping centre we would use to shop in (if that makes any sense) we had a bit of browsing time in New Look, La Senza (without Tom), a walking shop, the Disney store and a supermarket (to replenish the Mini Egg supply).

Back out at the front of the Gyle we struggled a little to find the bus we wanted, but having done so it didn't take too long to arrive. We did miss the stop we wanted as it was part way round the route but were very lucky to be overheard wondering where to get off by a couple who told us we'd only just missed it and where to look as we walked back. This Castle is really more of a big house (in the middle of a lot of other houses) but has a huge drive. The place was closed up for the day but as we hadn't planned on going inside this wasn't a disaster.
Seeking a lazy evening, we walked all of about three doors down the road for our tea shortly after returning to the Hostel. We'd seen the place yesterday which was a hybrid Indian/Thai restaurant. Marginally more pricey than some of the things we'd looked at but really nice.

Back at the hostel, Tom taught us Mau - a card game I wish I would be able to find people to play with at home. Just my kind of game :)

Edinburgh: Wednesday

We arrived in to Edinburgh Waverley around 11am, as we couldn't easily spot a sign for the station in a convenient point for a photograph we left that for another time and found the tourist information instead to pick up maps and leaflets for things we'd got planned (plus Lyndsey picked up some early postcards). After that we wandered to the hostel (finding it surprisingly easily) and dropped our bags off. Despite the booking form which had asked when we were checking in it turned out we had to wait until 2pm so we headed out for lunch at Pizza Hut instead. Lyndsey, Tom and I each had the buffet lunch whilst Lizzie had a pizza; when the bill arrived at the end it seemed our waitress had forgotten to add the three buffets to the bill (making the total only around £12 for the four of us) - when we asked if their had been a mistake she very kindly only charged us for two of the three buffets making it only about £7 each once we'd split the bill.

Once we were done at lunch we headed out to wander for a while until we could book in to the hostel. We were accosted by a monk on our wanderings but it was a poor time to catch us as we'd all just spent our change on food! We hadn't especially planned to do any particular activities on the wanderings but to see what we found and to do anything we thought appropriate. Stumbling around we found ourselves in Chambers St and so we did the following:

• Museum of Scotland (Community Chest)
  
• Chambers Street (Brown)

On entering the museum (photos on the way in), we started with the Kingdom of the Scots on the ground floor: most memorable things for me on this floor were the quotations written on the entrance, the huge ceremonial sword (and I mean huge) and a very clever looking metal chest whose lid was entirely taken up by it's complex locking mechanisms. Following this, we moved on to the Connect and Move It interactive galleries: I designed a robot that could perform surgery (followed by one that was completely unsuited to this purpose - think of hoover on wheels and then add a huge radar dish!) and together the four of us powered some wind-up electrical stuff. Finally we popped up to the roof and looked out over the city and wandered back out of the museum via the shop.


Leaving, we came back out onto Chambers Street and looked round for a photo spot and took them in front of a statue in the middle of the road before heading back to the hostel.


So, part two... after sorting ourselves out in the hostel we went out to find a number 35 bus (from right outside the hostel) out to Ocean Terminal to pick up:

• Prince Albert Quay (Community Chest)
  
• Royal Yacht Britannia (Station)
  
• Leith Walk (Green)
  
• Easter Road (Pink)

Despite my wad of Google Map print outs, the first two of these were suprisingly hard to find - particularly when it turned out that we couldn't physically get to the first one (there was a rather large set of gates in the way) and that the second wasn't quite where Google Maps thought it was. Still, we got reasonably close to the first and took some photos next to one of those lifesaving ring things - complete with reflective strips for flash photography :) The Royal Yacht turned out to be inside a shopping centre (somehow - I never did quite work that one out) and was well and truely closed by the time we found it but none of us had much of an interest in actually seeing the inside of a boat anyway. Walking back from the quays, we followed as much of Leith Walk as we could (it's apparently one of the longest roads in Edinburgh), stopping somewhere near the start at a Tesco to pick up whatever we fancied for breakfast the following day (pancakes with lemon and raisins for me) and taking a quick break away to visit Easter Road. Coming back into Edinburgh proper, we passed the St. James Centre (which appeared to be mostly taken up by John Lewis - mmm... haberdashery goodness!) so at least we now know where that one is.


Once we'd got back to the hostel and rested our feet for a bit be stumbled out to a nearby pub for dinner. Lyndsey, Tom and I had haggis/veggie haggis with tatties and neeps (which I learnt were turnips not parsnips as I thought someone had told me once). Getting back we played contract whist before crashing out :)

A/A Form Woes

Just phoned Louise and she's still not had my A/A form - this one is determined not to leave Lancaster I think. Anyway, I've emailed her a copy so hopefully we'll get this all sorted out :)

Title Deed

Having struggled to draw them out by hand, I've given up and scanned the title deeds. Hobnob's created me a generic template based on the scanned cards.Next job is to print them, fill the gaps and colour them in!

Monopoly Activities

Been working on my spreadsheet today, planning activities for the early half of the Monopoly Board for my QG exploration to Edinburgh. It's taken far longer than I thought. Some of these places are quite difficult to find much for even on Google. Combining Google with the Guidebook is getting me there, but slowly!

No cheese

The cheese man is not around for the 10th because he's on holiday for a month :(

Doh!

It seems there is more than one version of monopoly. The version I have received from my ebay seller is different to the one previously described to me by another seller and seems to have slightly better locations. I have updated the google map.

The changes to properties are:

Brown:
West Shore Road becomes Chambers Street

Orange:
Thistle Street becomes Gyle Avenue

Red:
Cortorphine Road becomes FountainBridge
Royal Mile becomes University of Edinburgh

Yellow:
Edinburgh Zoo becomes Charlotte Lane
Greenside Place becomes Royal Mile

Green:
Chambers Street becomes Leith Walk
St Andrews Sq becomes Rutland Court

Stations:
Edinburgh Airport becomes Haymarket Train Station

Mmm.... cheese!

Started on the Monopoly activities spreadsheet for Edinburgh today. I've found a guy who brings a cheese van up to The Meadows some Saturdays which sounds quite nice. Have sent him an email to see if he'd be up there when we are.

Edinburgh Train Tickets

Bought my train tickets for Edinburgh! I'm racing through the "To Do" list today :)

QG Exploration Planning

Met Lizzi again today in the Venue to try and get the programme divided up nicely before Lizzi goes home for Christmas. To keep it nice and simple we've agreed that the properties can be divided straight down the middle, so I will do Brown->Orange (inclusive) and Lizzi Red->Purple (also inclusive). I'll do the four stations and Lizzi will look into the Community Chests. For each one we'll try and find one or more suggestions of things we could do (bearing in mind timing and costs) and put them together in a template which we can send back and forth until it is complete. Once it's complete we can use the list and my maps so that together we can (via MSN or some similar) have a think about a good order and who's to lead which bits. In addition, we thought it'd be a good idea to make up some large size (A4) property deeds to use in the photographs - we'll each make cards for the properties we are researching.

Monopoly Board

Hurrah - I now have (or will have) an Edinburgh Monopoly Board!

Edinburgh Monopoly Map

This afternoon was a dead loss for work as some stuff I needed was broken so instead I've put together a Google map for my planned Queen's Guide exploration in Edinburgh. It's based on the Edinburgh Monopoly board:


View Larger Map

QG Peoples

Have mailed lots of folk asking if they want to come to Edinburgh - hopefully I'll get some replies!

Monopoly Locations

Hurrah, a nice ebayer tells me the locations for Edinburgh Monopoly are as follows:

Brown streets - The Meadows, West Shore Road.

Blue streets - Lady Stairs Close, Lauriston Castle, Princes St Gardens.

Pink streets - Easter Road, Tynecastle Stadium, Murrayfield.

Orange streets - Thistle Street, St James Centre, George Street.

Red streets - Corstorphine Road, Holyrood, Royal Mile.

Yellow streets - Edinburgh Zoo, Grindlay Street, Greenside Place.

Green streets - Chambers Street, St Andrews Square, The Scottish Parliament.

Purple streets - Princes Street, Edinburgh Castle.

Train spaces - Forth Road Bridge, Edinburgh Airport, Waverley Station, Royal Yacht Britannia.

Community Chest - Albert Quay Leith, National Museums of Scotland, Bank of Scotland.

QG Exploration Planning

Today Lizzi and I met up in the Venue to plan our exploration. Lizzi suggested going to Edinburgh to visit the locations on the Edinburgh monopoly board which seems fine to me as long as we can find a board! We tried a quick set of Web searches in the library today and didn't find anything. Lizzi says she will take this on as she has no lectures for the rest of the day. Once she's got the locations she'll mail them to me and I'll try and find a hostel (or several if that works better) for us to stay in. We're both going to try and recruit people pretty quickly so we can get our A/A form completed this coming weekend.

Books I Read in March

Total: 8 books.

Past Mortem (Ben Elton)
The Chocolate Run (Dorothy Koomson)
Boy A (Jonathan Trigell)
Concertina: The Life and Loves of a Dominatrix (Susan Winemaker)
Changeling (Melissa Diem)
The Light Fantastic (Terry Pratchett)
Sushi For Beginners (Marian Keyes)
And God Created the Au Pair (Benedicte Newland & Pascale Smets)

Another library read, I borrowed, read and then returned Past Mortem within 24 hours (28/03). I much preferred this to some of Ben Elton's other recent books - it's witty and clever but I did work out whodunnit around halfway through.

Having enjoyed My Best Friend's Girl and Marshmallows for Breakfast, The Chocolate Run seemed like a good bet when it was one of Waterstones half price offers of the week. I started this at Waddow and finished it a few days after I got back on the 27th. A little more traditional chick-lit than the others, I didn't enjoy it as much as My Best Friend's Girl but it was a light, enjoyable read none-the-less. I put it on BookMooch and it very quickly went to PurpleRosebud (UK).

Boy A (22/03) was (alongside Concertina, The Chocolate Run and many, many others) a Waterstones buy. I was feeling a bit miserable and got quite happy with the 3 for 2's. I really enjoyed this book. It's short but easy to read and thought-provoking. I'm hanging onto it to read once more before I pass it on to someone. Boy A has also been made into a film which I'd be tempted to watch if I got the chance.

Concertina: The Life and Loves of a Dominatrix (21/03) was another of my reading at Waddow books. I picked this up in Waterstones, Lancaster because it caught my eye and the combination of food alongside domination seemed slightly odd. Odd it may be but there's not quite as much of a combination as the blurb and comments make out - there are some quite graphic descriptions of both but more of one than the other and rarely interleaved. That said, this is a book with some very beautiful bits of descriptive text (whatever it is they're describing) and is generally quite an enjoyable read. I've hung onto this one to reread again and then I'll decide what to do with it.

Changeling was a "Drop of the Irish" read from the library (celebrating St. Patrick's day I assume). This is a short, moving book which I really enjoyed. I read most of it in one go but then had to hold off on it for a week or so (doing coursework) before reading the last few pages on the train up to my Queen's Guide residential at Waddow (20/03).

The Light Fantastic is the second of my very slow movements through the Discworld series. I had to restart this a couple of times because I kept putting it down for weeks at a time but that's no real reflection on this book. Hopefully I can put Equal Rites down as one of my reads for next month...

I picked Sushi For Beginners up from the library having read (on the backs of far too many trashy chick-lit novels) that Marian Keyes is the author of the genre. Unfortunately I wasn't all that impressed by this book. There's nothing wrong with it as such but it's not at all special and felt a little bit formulaic for my liking. Like most novels of its kind it's pretty easy to read but I'd be unlikely to bother with it again.

Borrowed from the library and read in bed on that day when I was too ill to get up, And God Created the Au Pair is a very easy-to-read book. One of an increasing number of novels written entirely as correspondence there's not a lot else to say about this book.