Busy busy day in the Mercat

Changed computer and managed to acquire a small G &T to help with the writing.

Up before the birds again and beat RGB out the house, as he was also up early and going to his morning meeting with the "Cult".
Thought that I might get plenty done as I was in early, however, with the town filling up with tourists I had a knock on the door at 8 .30 and my first visitors for breakfast. Irish, French, Romanian, English - here for stag parties and also the Scotland v France six nations match on Sunday. I ended up with a group of blokes who started with their breakfast, then drinks, and then lunch - and they will be back.

Young lady and her friends appeared for lunch and to celebrate her birthday, many happy returns. thankfully I had RGB , Fiona and Alana helping me out, and with a full house, we were busy but not as busy as Claire, Jamie and Dee in the kitchen. Even so, I still managed to have a chat with a few of the customers.

Young Scott and Conner arrived to relieve me , Scottie is taking serious stick about his photo on the Burns Night Dinner.

RGB was in fine fettle, managed to get his picture in the Edinburgh Evening News along with an article about the refusal by the licensing board to give him an extension to open on Sunday morning. It seems that the punters can drink in Diane's Pool Hall, or get their drink at the local store, but cannot drink in a well run gastro Pub. Police objected saying that we would be disturbing the neighbours - 10 a.m. to 12.30 a.m. !!!!

Steam was emitting from our ears when the TIE folks arrived to say that they are going to start moving the traffic barriers on West Maitland Street from one side of the street and onto our side on Saturday, which means that there will be even more chaos and congestion when the crowds arrive on Sunday for the rugby, and it will not be to our benefit - not that I will know, as I am off to London for three days to run a training course.

Letter has arrived calling me to a committee meeting of Soutra Isle conclave No 401, on Sunday to sort out my office bearers for next year, however as I am due at the airport this is one meeting i will not make. Unlike, the Squaremen tomorrow at the Edinburgh Masonic Club.
Work to do now.

The Eden Spa - Edradour, and The Spirit of Loch Ewe

Friday evening and starting to relax after a couple of busy days.

Wednesday night I called on my neighbour, Mike , of A & R Technology, who, treated me to my "New Year" drink, a wee dram !! We then tried a German Whisky which did not really impress - however, we did have a "look" at a bottle of a single malt " Spirit of Loch Ewe", produced by the Loch Ewe Distillery, (Drumchork Lodge Hotel), Aultbea, Wester Ross, which is now the smallest distillery in Scotland, and the only distillery producing illicit style whisky using an ancient method. Mike had a miniature bottle, which was whisky, only two days old !! but actually did have taste. There is a bit of controversy as the Edradour Distillery at Pitlochry, has - up till now been classed as the smallest in Scotland - but as they use different methods they are getting round it that way.
You can stay in the hotel for 5 days and have the opportunity to brew, ferment, distill, and rack a 5 ltr cask of Uisge Beathe - for a nominal £1000 !!!!!!!!!!, or a nights Dinner B & B for £350.

On a similar theme I see that an expedition has recovered some intact bottles of McKinlays whisky which was buried under the ice on the site of Shackleton's store stache in the Antarctic - apparently most of the bottles are intact, a dream find.
Anyway, one dram led to another and as were watching Rangers winning their cup semi final time soon passed - end result being that I missed the end of the "Day of The Jackal" ( Edward Fox in the original version) once again.

Thurday a.m. was a bit of a strain !!! but I made it to town and to work by 7.15 a.m. Bar was steady all day, and I eventually left to get home for 5 p.m. Just enough time to get sorted and out to Newbattle for a meeting of Dundas RA Chapter which is now meeting there. As this was a Provincial visitation led by the provincial Superintendent Alexander Foster Mooney, there was a good turn out and an excellent working of the RA Degree with two candidates up from London.

Received a nice surprise E mail from Tilak and Srimithy at the Eden Resort and Spa , Berewulla, Sri Lanka, which we stayed at five years ago. Lovely e mail, full of news and we are delighted to hear that business has recovered after the tsunami. It would certainly be nice to go back there, the Spa was magic, three hours a day for eight days - plenty sunshine and lovely fresh food.

Not sure why, but cannot add photos on this computer so I will change machines.

Penicuik's Luscious Ladies, and

Well, I nearly had a whole day off today, took myself off for a swim and ended up having a good hours session, which considering the chaos taking place in other parts of the pool with the schoolkids was very good for me.
Home at lunch time, had a couple of calls to deal with so that took a wee while, but with a positive result. Thought I was off to Runcorn again tomorrow, but looks as though I am having that pleasure next Wednesday or Thursday when I get back from London.

Next, off down into Penicuik, where I had arranged a session with the lovely ladies in the Luscious Beauty Studio, Melissa and Leigh, (Ashleigh was missing) who are doing well since they moved to their new premises in the pedestrian precinct. Melissa, my therapist, soon had me at her mercy and I must say that she was neither too hard or too light, just perfect - and even managed to undo several knots in my back and shoulders. A really good massage - I was spoiled for choice as she had a hot stones treatment and a hot paraffin wax deep tissue back massage
on offer also. As "Dirty Harry" used to say, "I'll be back".

Some new building taking place on the Carlops Road, where, like everywhere else any spare ground is being built on - here we have had four home "Royal Scots" cottages, and now the ground has been prepared for another four houses in the rear gardens.
Builders were struggling a bit as the temperature never got up above freezing so no bricks were laid today.

Back to The Mercat Bar in the morning again, so hopefully we will not have any or too much snow for me to get up to.

Ladies in Blue - well done the girls.

Before I start , it was me that was a bit blue this morning - Minus 5.5 C this morning when I went to de ice the car.

Anyway , I have read a couple of interesting items in the papers recently about local Female Police Officers.

Firstly there was my former colleague, Norma Graham, now Chief Constable of Fife Constabulary who featured as she has turned down her "bonus" payment for reaching the Force targets and objectives, well done Norma, it is a pity some of these greedy money grabbing bankers, Council Officials,etc could not take a leaf from her book. Remember that last year we had the boss of the tramworks taking a big bonus despite the fact that the whole project was a shambles.

Last night there was a good feature article in the Edinburgh Evening News about Chief Superintendent Gill Imery the new Commander of Edinburgh's "A" Division, well done. However, reading last nights article reminded me of when I returned to Scotland after three years in Durham County Constabulary and joined the Police and went to Loanhead, "E" Division of what was the then Lothian and Peebles Constabulary.
In those days , WPC's ( Women Police Constables) were few and far between and we had a team based at the old Police Station in Dalkeith (in the hennery ), under the control of the then Sgt Jean Cunningham @ "Big Jean" ( although we would not call her that to her face). She was a powerful character, both physically and mentally, I think also the British police ladies badminton champion. She always called me " that English Bobby", and had to be reminded that I was Scottish and local but that I had not lost my "geordie" accent - (it took a while for that to happen). Her sidekick at that time was Grace Gow, also a badminton player of great standing.
In those days, the late 60's , as I have written previously we had the big dance hall at Bonnyrigg , Edinburgh Rock, which was always very busy on a weekend, and always very well policed. Our WPC's were there to deal with the regular drunken and abusive women who caused trouble each week, but one of my lasting memories was heading up the stairs to deal with a disturbance to be met by "big Jean" heading down the stairs dragging two blokes, their heads locked under each arm , and she said " you are far too late, dealt with" !!! The local neds treated her with extreme respect as she had a fearsome right hook.
Over the following years, and as the forces amalgamated, Jean eventually rose to the rank of Superintendent in Force Headquarters and was, at that time the highest ranking female officer in Scotland. Her "sidekick", Grace Gow, became an Inspector and was for a time my boss - she was extremely active in the Police Federation and fought tooth and nail for "her boys", and was well respected for doing so.
I did see her passing a couple of weeks ago in Penicuik, with her husband Ian, but she now does not keep very well, possibly as a result of smoking an awful lot of cigarettes in her time.

Snow now bring out the gribes again.

Well, mother nature has done it again !! Arose this morning at 6.30 a.m. to find that we were once more covered in a mantle of snow. Big panic when I realised that one of the cars was still at the back of the house and potentially about to be snowed in again - or maybe. So it was out to get it moved, a real treat to be the first to make tracks through newly fallen snow, something magical about headlights playing on a pristine surface - but the task was done without any trouble at all.
Different kettle of fish, as they say , at 8 a.m. when Mrs B headed off to work, the whole world had ground to a halt - an accident at Pomathorn blocked the Auchendinny Road, and I think something similar at the top of Lowries Den on the A702 so everything from both Peebles and West Linton directions was being channelled through Penicuik - end result - big car park. Now 1030 hrs and things are now moving , the snow has stopped falling and the road surface is back to black.

Me - I just went off to the pool for a swim and had a session in the steam room - who cares about the snow?

Back to some observations over the past few days :-
So - Andy Murray was beaten by the better player in the finals of the Australian Open tennis - had a bit of a weep to himself - however we Scots are renowned for being magnanimous in defeat, in fact we are the best losers in the World - I think. (Well done anyway Andy, your time will come).

Our Edinburgh Traffic Wardens were making up for lost time on Saturday night, still booking motorists in Grove street, Edinburgh at 6.15 p.m., 15 mins before the end of the day and with Sunday a free day - miserable sods.

Similarly the Environmental Wardens were out at 10.10 p.m. making sure that the traders in George Street had all their street furniture out of the way, no need to use their CCTV cameras to film the drunken yobs causing mayhem in the area - Jobsworth strikes again.

My early morning cyclists, or in reality all day cyclists, carefree , nice dark clothing , no lights, ignoring traffic lights, riding on the footpaths , etc, - and some bright spark has it in mind to make motorists liable for all accidents involving cyclists !!! I think not - unless they all have licences and are properly attired and illuminated.

My final comment for the moment has to be with regard to the Somalian Pirates, I, personally feel that we should not give in to their demands. They are criminals, it is not a legitimate means of earning a living, and if they allow their hostages to die or execute them , they are shown to be the lowest of the low and deserve any retribution which falls upon them. Sadly the French Government do not have the backbone to do likewise - which just exacerbates the situation.

Ariel photos of berwick law, the Bridges, and canal

Having had a closer look at the photos Go Jo took while up in the sky with Biggles and co, I found these which are interesting.
There is the shot of Edinburgh showing the castle in the background, but more interestingly is the canal basin in the foreground , the end of the Union canal which ran right into the middle of the town . It was a busy place the harbour at Fountainbridge with horse drawn and powered barges bringing coal and other supplies into the city. About seven years ago the remains of a large barge was found well preserved under the water and the mud in the basin and the local archaeologists dug it out and worked on it , very quickly, as it was delaying the restoration of the canal, which was undertaken as part of the Millennium Project.

Next we have a nice shot of the approaches from the south to the two bridges (road and rail) at South Queensferry,
Finally, further east along the coast there is Berwick Law casting its winter shadow over North Berwick, and in the distance the world renowned bird sanctuary at the Bass Rock, now only accessible to recognised groups and individuals, but tourists are able to go round the Rock by boat. The bird sanctuary is monitored by CCTV, and has its own web cams.

Biggles flies again - and some red eyed ladies

So, Sunday was a bit quiet for me as I recovered from the night before, however the intrepid RGB @ Biggles and his trusted co pilot were out for the day , high in the sky , up in the wide blue yonder having a flight in a plane out from Perth airport. There is no truth in the rumour that he looped the loop over and around the forth Railway bridge , which looks like it is held together by sticking plaster. Nor did he come in at head height to frighten the tourists off Arthur's Seat ( Edinburgh's extinct volcano). It might be the case that Go Jo's father (Jock) is still trying to rescue her washing which she dropped off on a low level pass over her home , so the interference in his TV is caused by the "smalls" wrapped in the antenna !!

Seriously chilly again this morning , but colder in Edinburgh than Penicuik, NO SNOW yet.

I had a group of lovely young Irish students, over on the "red eye" from Dublin for three days fun to celebrate the completion of their exams, led by the bubbling Aedemar , were Shanna , Aideen, Brona, Fiona, Aoife, and Maebh ( very unique Irish names), so hopefully they will enjoy their session of R & R. They were intrigued by the blog !!! especially some of the more recent photos.