I’m starting 2024 as I mean to continue – by seeing and hanging out with friends more often. Yesterday Tom and I had a great day moseying around Edinburgh.
After meeting at Waverley and grabbing a quick coffee and bite, we headed to the Scottish National Gallery on The Mound. Tom was keen to see the Turner watercolours exhibition which is on every January – apparently the ideal time of year to best show off the works. I probably wouldn’t have visited this unprompted but I’m glad I did. My favourites were perhaps The Falls of Clyde and Lake Albano.
From there we made the short walk to Cockburn Street and into an old haunt, Underground Solush’n, for some record shopping. I got a few, with the pick being the album Flying Wig by Devendra Banhart.
Next stop was St Andrew’s Square for a saunter around the menswear floor in Harvey Nichols. Neither of us were in the market for anything in particular but still it was nice to browse their sale including coats by Copenhagen-based brand NN.07 as sported by Jeremy Allen White in The Bear.
We hopped on an Edinburgh tram outside (first time for both of us) headed for Port of Leith. We caught the Leith Saturday market where Tom was beguiled by a purveyor of exotic olive oil (I can't believe I'm typing this) before we stumbled upon a great wee record stall. To my surprise it wasn’t just the usual selection of records no-one wants but instead had plenty of gems. I picked up two LPs from my wishlist – Vangelis's Earth (featuring the glorious Let it happen) and Spacek’s Curvatia.
All that record shopping gives you an appetite so it was off to Teuchter’s Landing for some food and refreshments. With Burns Night just around the corner we honoured the bard by enjoying haggis, neeps and tatties and a dram (Craigellachie 13y).
Our final stop was the Shore Bar where we caught up with a couple of Edinburgh-dwelling pals, Gav and Nick.
After all that I was back on the train home by around 10 pm – mission accomplished.