old mill by the stream

As Edgar was going off on another Livingston-colleague-visiting jaunt I had a few hours to do what I wanted over lunchtime, which today comprised popping to one of the suitable high-altitude viewpoints established earlier in the week to see the mankyflats at Sighthill be demolished. Unfortunately, despite having everything packed up relatively well in advance I didn't manage to leave the house until nearly eleven, took a stupid route and then dithered about whether to wait at Costorphine Road or carry on up Kaimes Road with the result that I'd just turned up Kaimes when a massive rumble behind me indicated that I was too late. I'd thought that each block was going to go one at a time so carried on up to the top, resulting in attempting to replenish the oxygen in my myoglobin with lungsful of tiny floating bits of building from all three blocks as the dust cloud drifted past. Fortunately my cold must have meant an extra-thick layer of protective mucus on all my pipes.

Rather than waste the inclusion of a flask of coffee and some lunch in my bag (despite the wasted inclusion of a tripod, sun-hat and extra lens) I went for a further trundle, going past another suggested viewpoint and finally getting round to going through the heard-of-but-never-ridden underpass beneath the A720 between the more usual means of getting around it at the Gogar roundabout and beside the canal. Despite needing to be vaguely airport-wards later in the afternoon I trundled along the canal for a bit then attempted to do some internal-map-connecting-remindering by heading through Heriot Watt's campus, thence up to Currie and along the WoL path until I found a nice lunching-spot. I can remember having gone out along Calder Road to see where I ended up years ago, discovering that that was where Heriot Watt was and finding a way out south/upwards to Currie, but hadn't been deliberately out to repeat it since. I'd similarly tried to use the Lanark Road known-escape-route to get out to Jupiter Artland back in May and when slightly wrong, so that little patch of roads is one I evidently need to revise. After feeding I went back roughly the same way to get up to the A8 without going back into the city (though the Canal - Gogar Station Road - A8 route is one I did a few times on extended home-commutes a couple of years ago), thence to the airport (popping into the terminal to buy some food), thence to the Hilton, where one of Nicky's pals had booked out half the pool so do some underwater baby-photography. We already have a print of Edgar doing the Nevermind-baby pose sometime last year but he hadn't been swimming for a while and would benefit from being reminded that water isn't to be scared of. He was a bit clingy at first but relaxed and survived a few dunkings and still looks like we ought to be able to eventually get him keeping himself afloat without having to subject him to flotation-aids.