Touring with the Kinates – Arrival Day – The Royal Botanic Gardens

Just two weeks after my mom & Steve left Edinburgh, Aunt Benja and Uncle Chris arrived.  Luther and I took the bus to the airport to pick them up and brought them back to our flat.  We had amazing weather for the majority of their visit.  Unfortunately the day they arrived it decided to sprinkle.  The nice thing about Scottish rain though is that most of the time you don’t even realise it.  I had looked at the forecast and we weren’t expecting rain so I opted for my trench coat instead of my hard shell and still wasn’t really all that wet by the time we made it to dinner. 

Aunt Benja and Uncle Chris have an uncanny amount of knowledge about plants and trees stored in their brains so taking them to the Botanic Gardens was definitely a good idea.  And because spring had been delayed by about a month this year, the gardens were in full bloom.  Luke and I had gone about a month earlier and there was definitely a big difference between the two visits. 

When Luke first arrived, our friend George took him to the botanic gardens.  Luke posted some pictures on Facebook of the Chilean Pine (or Monkey Puzzle) and Aunt Benja commented on how much she loved them.  Ever since they have been renamed “Benja’s trees”.  Needless to say she was pretty happy when we got to the “Benja’s trees” section of the garden. 

Since it was sprinkling, we decided to quickly finish or walk through the gardens and head to a pub for dinner.  Since we were in Stockbridge we were told to head to a new pub called the Scran & Scallie.  It definitely wasn’t your traditional Scottish pub – it’s a bit fancier and has a really cool atmosphere.  We had our first of many pints during their trip and really enjoyed the food.

From there, Luke and I decided we had probably better let them hit the sack since they’d been traveling all day and we were heading out to St. Andrew’s the next morning.  So we took the long way back to the flat through city centre and then called it an evening.

A good picture of New College with no scaffolding and no banners.  A rare occurrence. 

Other than the little bit of rain, it was a great way to start their trip.

Love you & miss you,

Aubs, Luke & Luther