I know how bees work!

So, Nettie and Christian arrived at Glasgow airport at around lunchtime on Saturday.
We made it through to Edinburgh, got them their bus passes, and headed home. It was a pretty quiet evening - they were jetlagged, we were knackered, so we went to bed quite early.
The next morning, they were up at 5.30. I was awoken at 6.30 by the noise of them trying to do the previous night's washing up very quietly. Since we were up, Nettie, Christian and I went for a walk through Duddingston village and about Arthur's Seat. Matt went back to bed.

Nettie and Christian in front of Duddingston Kirk.


Then we went into town. We didn't really have any plan, other than wandering about.

Edinburgh Uni's McEwan Hall.


Greyfriars Bobby.


Christian decided not to buy the hat.


Piggy and Nettie.


This photo did not go according to plan.


We also went to Poundland, and bought items for going camping. These included, but were not limited to: beautiful raincoats (this one modelled by Nettie)


: A very cheap (i.e. £1) and somewhat psychadelic football


: A Rubik's Snake which, no euphemism intended, has given Christian many hours of fun.


Join me soon for the Highland installment!

Morning rituals.

I feel I don't need to point out to you again, oh friends, that Matt and I are sometimes a little... odd.

So, without further ado, here are the rituals/habits that make up our trip to work(s).

1) Head Nettles. The person walking on the road side of the pavement has to call "Head Nettles" when the other approaches the raised garden with nettles poking out of the fence at head height.

2) Here Comes Your Bus. There's a bus stop down by the junction that we know from experience is very annoying to wait at, as you can't see if the bus is coming. So we sing quietly a verse and chorus of "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies using either "Here Comes Your Bus" or "There Is No Bus", depending on whether we can see the bus coming from our location.

3) The Cat Guess. Once we're on the bus, we soon reach a ground floor flat with two cats (Pedestal Cat and The Pretender) residing in it. They have one of those cat pedestals in their front window, so we have to guess whether there'll be one cat or two there, and their relative positions in the window.

4) Cyberlady. She waits at one of the bus stops every morning, and seems to be wearing Cybus Industries earpods. We just keep an eye out for her.

5) Doggie Watch. Ahh, Doggiewatch. We pass a park on the bus and, since it's generally around the same time each day, we keep a lookout for the regulars (this is partially because we'd love to have a dog, but the fates align to deny us one for now). There's MyToy (loves his chewy toys), Small Grey Dog (has the cutest face, and his owner is always standing patiently as he spends ages sniffing things), Elderly Collie (with her equally elderly owner), Stiiiiick! (who loves his sticks, and sometimes has a full-body mohawk haircut), Fat Black Lab (who is the ambliest dog ever, but is no longer quite as fat as his name might suggest) and Hill Dog (whose owner spends ages throwing a ball up a hill so that he can chase it). Sometimes it's good when the bus idles at a stop for a while...

6) Honourable mentions: This Is Italy (as discussed here), and Giant Freddy Mercury. When the next-door Playhouse was showing "We Will Rock You", the Omni centre displayed a 19ft tall bronze statue of the Queen frontman. We said "Good morning, Giant Freddie Mercury" every day, and were sad when he went away.

7) Clancy Docwra. There are a lot of roadworks going on at the moment, and we pass a site which is filled with diggers and tipper trucks and so forth with "Clancy Docwra" written on them. We, under our breaths, sing a verse of Nita Nitro, but swapping "Nita Nitro" for "Clancy Docwra".

So... tell me your weird little rituals!