I'm not from here.........

So where am I from?

              And where is home?

 I was born and raised in Wales but moved to Edinburgh to study and stayed for thirty years;  now I've relocated to the West Coast of Scotland to start my own business.

My first memory of Edinburgh was not the castle but the wet, grey tenement buildings looming outside  the windows as my train drew into Waverley;  it seemed a forbidding place.  I grew to love it as I came to know it better; regular Saturday afternoon walks taking me to the neighbourhoods of Bruntsfield, Morningside and Stockbridge with their shops and cafes.

Bruntsfield tenement, in the sun

 I learned about its past too,  discovering where there used to be factories and before them farms.  I moved many times,  lived in a basement and up in the eaves, in the footwear department of a converted store  and a house built for shoemakers, above a doctor's  surgery and  in a former hospital, and next door to an ice cream cone manufacturer.
I developed favourites among those shops and cafes, knew which were the nicest  playgrounds and the best places to walk a dog.

picnicking on the Links

http://www.thehuxley.co.uk

http://www.harveynichols.com/restaurant/edinburgh-dining/

at HN again !

http://www.contini.com/contini-ristorante

http://mimisbakehouse.com

Edinburgh was home......though I went home for the holidays


                                 Edinburgh was home.........I'd lived there nearly all of my adult life



                                                     I was from Edinburgh..... I'd lived there longer than anywhere else.



                                                          And then I didn't.....


                          Now I live here......


We came here on a rainy day, not expecting to like the house.....

We've been busy, there's a new area to explore and many skills to be learned. I'm particularly seeking the dual grails of the perfect poached egg and the ability to launch and steer the  boat. We've researched  the development of our house as it's grown from a croft, become a  tearoom for a while and is now due to undergo our  changes (watch this space), and learned about the history of the island   MrS has been doing some work with our local museum, helping with their archives. In fact that what he was doing when I started to think about this post.

old postcard view

So where was I? Well the sun was shining and it was a day off so I was out having lunch. I've started developing new favourite places,

ok it was August not April, but this is Scotland

http://www.piazzaoban.com

http://www.dunollie.org

because as the French say..

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_ça_change,_plus_c%27est_la_même_chose

But for every move there are the things you take with you and things you leave behind.

And so I make Welsh cakes to welcome our guests.

                                                   Marina 
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