Edinburgh.

Another Christmas holiday adventure begins. After a very long and mildly exciting journey across the world yet again, I am finally here in Portobello, Edinburgh to start yet another house sit adventure.
The journey was very long - Melbourne to Dubai, where we all had to decamp with all the gear, tired and grumpy after lots of hours with little sleep, followed by a  frantic journey through yet another security check, before being loaded straight back onto the same plane. Then another 8 hours of ???? before a number of attempted landings at Heathrow. Lousy day, lots of wind and rain and an almost landing before we roared back up into yet another circle pattern. The journey on the screen showed lots of loops around and around as we had to wait after loosing our turn caused by the aborted landing. It was getting a little bumpy and uncomfortable with lots of people turning white, but finally we made the ground.
This was followed by the joys of an enormous airport, a bus trip to another terminal and a very thorough immigration official - had my doubts there for a while as the whether he was going to let me in. Lots of questions and proof of my return ticket and finally I was allowed into the UK. Certainly has changed since last time I came in.
Yet more drama on the final leg of the journey, with lots of passengers but no crew - both the flight crew and the inside crew had been delayed on previous flights, so we all waited in the bus until they finally arrived.

But it is absolutely wonderful to be here, Edinburgh has been on the top of of my list for house sits and here I am in a lovely newly renovated home with a great dog and just a short walk from the beach. Portobello is just a short bus ride from central Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth and quite a trendy suburb I think.
Nicola has only just moved into her newly renovated downstairs home, so it is all fresh and new and the back garden is delightful. I am looking forward to exploring.

 Tomorrow I head off on a 3 day trip to the Isle of Skye and I did hear they have had the first snow for the season, so it should be beautiful.