“The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the train before.” G K Chesterton

We rose early as we were heading to Edinburgh that day. We packed and after a good-natured chat with the jolly guesthouse host, we took an uber to the station . We breakfasted at a Pret and then found the platform we were meant to be on. There was a warm waiting room which we found seats in. 10 minutes before the train was due mum asked if she had time to use the toilet. I absentmindedly said yes. The toilet was right next to us and there didn’t seem to be a queue. Obviously, this was the wrong answer. Mum disappeared into the Ladies and almost immediately the rest of the waiting room upped and headed out onto the platform. The train arrived. I positioned all our luggage at the toilet door hoping for a quick transit outside upon mum’s reappearance. As the door opened and closed I could see that there was in fact a queue hidden behind the outer door. The whistle blew, the train pulled away and mum stepped out the door almost as if it was scripted.

“that was an expensive wee mum”

“I had a poo too”

“well that is alright then”

We wandered over to the famous York Tap station pub and stepped in just as they clicked the snib on the door. I ordered a pint and and ½ of Jaipur and set about booking another train ticket. I wouldn’t have gotten to experience the York Tap if we hadn’t missed our train so there is a silver lining.

An hour later we were speeding north through Yorkshire, then County Durham , then Northumberland then Scotland. A pair of junior doctors sat opposite us trading harrowing gruesome antidotes . We passed through Newcastle and got a glimpse of the famous bridges all lined up. Soon we were pulling into Edinburgh Waverly and a whole new country.

We trundled through the station following a Hanzel and Gretel trail of signs to the taxi stand. As we were getting closer …or at least further from the platform, a young man in hiviz directed us to a lift and asked if we wanted him to book a taxi. I agreed and once we had crossed a carpark a second chap in Hiviz directed us into a Tesla driven by a  nervous African woman. We flew through the streets and the one positive thing I can say about Teslas is that the see-through roof allowed us to admire the old gothic buildings above. Our guesthouse was located in the suburb of Tollcross to the south west of the CBD. We passed a series of door and lock box challenges , dropped our gear to our room and headed out to some pubs I had researched. First up and just round the corner was Bennets Bar. Bennets sports a gloriously intact Victorian interior, a partitioned snug called the jug bar and a cross corner layout allowing access from two streets. They are also one of the few bars still using Aitken Founts alongside beer engines to serve real ale. The Aitken Fount system uses pressurized air to gently push the beer out of the cask and up to the tap. Or at least they did use air, I wonder if today an inert gas might be doing the job. We had a pint and a ½ of very dry oatmeal stout from a Scottish micro brewer. We then wandered a block on to the Cloisters Bar located next door to a church. My friend Denise worked here when she lived in Edinburgh. Here we had a pint and a ½ of Crossborders Heavy. We then wandered on towards an area known as the Grassmarket and a bar called Bow Bar. Bow Bar is an iconic wet led boozer. Again, it has Aitken Founts in operation. We got a pint and a ½ of an 80 Shilling and sat at a strange wee mini table seemingly designed just for a middle aged man and his mum. A few seats along from us a man dozed on and off , flirting with the world of sleep as people enthusiastically drank and chatted around him. I noted there was a wee heavy on the bar so ordered a ½ of it and I have to say it was marvelous.  Sadly I don’t recall the brewer.  

We were now getting hungry, so we wandered down Grassmarket and popped into a random pub. Upon entering I knew I had made a mistake but persevered out of Kiwi reluctance to exit without transacting. There was no real ale, little decent on the keg lines. The woman behind the bar didn’t know what day it was. I ordered 2 pints of Tennents and two bowls of Cullen Skink, a main of haggis neeps and tatties, for me and a Sunday Roast for mum. The Tennents was poor, the Cullen  Skink excellent . We knew after the soup that we had ordered too much food as we were full. The haggis main came out and I have to say that despite still bearing the marks of the plastic containers it had been heated in and turned out from it was excellent, the roast was venison and predictably dry and stringy. Win some lose some. As we left mum went to the ladies to find there was no toilet paper.

We wandered back to Bennets Bar and ordered 2 double whiskies. Water was dosed from the old spirit water tap on the bar. I had to return and order a ginger ale for mum.

“do you want ice in the ginger ale?”

“no she is going to do something terrible to her malt”

“I don’t want to know!!.. then again my grandfather used to drink the Macallan with diet coke, even as a bairn I knew that was wrong”

I was struck by how young the crowd in the bar was. Anywhere else in the world this sort of pub (Victorian interior, no piped music, conversation and sipped pints and drams the order of the day) would be the preserve of old men. But mum and myself were significantly dragging up the average age in the room.  A group of students were discussing how student flat property management is a rort and they never get their bonds back regardless of the state of the house before and after. As they left I noticed one looked like a young Dylan Thomas, he wore a very retro trench coat and a beautiful young woman clasped his arm tightly as they stepped out into the night.

We finished our whisky and walked the block to our guesthouse and our beds.