A walking tour of Warriston Cemetery was just the thing for a sunny Saturday afternoon.  Since it was under the auspices of the National Gallery the focus was on artists and architects buried there with an additional nod to some of the pioneers of photography.

I confess only one name was familiar to me, the artist Robert Scott Lauder.  The architects I knew none of  but I'm familiar with many of their buildings; the McEwan Hall, the University Medical School, the Portrait Gallery etc. etc.

The grandest monument we came across was not to an artist but to one Robertson Mclean from the island of Coll who when his father died was taken off with his siblings by his mother to Australia where they made lots of money and moved to New Zealand where they made even more money.  Some of it was eventually used to pay for this:

He appears in his brother Allan's entry the New Zealand biographical dictionary.

Leaving the cemetery and en route to a birthday party in Leith I passed eight fine tennis courts in Goldenacre which at 4pm on a sunny Saturday were devoid of life.  No wonder we are short of Wimbledon champions.

When the party venue door was opened to me a toddler rushed down the long corridor and more or less threw herself into my arms.  "Oh" said her dad "She must think you are someone else."  How cruel is that?

The fine weather persisted into Sunday so I went out for a walk mid morning and satisfied an urge I've had for a while to examine the Collective Gallery's new home on Calton Hill and the new restaurant that's up there now.  I hadn't been up literally for years and wondered how my aging legs would cope with the steep path up from Royal Terrace.  They coped fine though I needed to stop to draw breath a couple of times but I probably had to do that even when I was a lot fitter.

The refurbishment of the observatory is excellent though I didn't think much of what the Collective was showing.

I skipped a film about sex workers in favour of a display of colouful clothes hanging on a line.  A light projects their shadows onto a wall. You are invited to listen to a vinyl (no doubt a critical element) record of odd music with a voice saying something over it (no doubt another critical element).  Here am I doing just that thing and looking suitably stern or is it puzzled as I do so.

The restaurant, called for good reason The Lookout, is a relatively unobtrusive modern building that in a couple of hundred years or so will fit in nicely with the existing buildings.