Shopping is dull and boring. That is a fact. Don’t bother arguing, it’s simply true. Unless food and(/or) drink is involved, then it is infinitely improved.
Anyway, I digress. I was forced, by the need for more work clothes, to go into town shopping. Obviously, I needed to find some way of making this exercise palatable and so out came the camera.
I started at the East End. Just off St Andrews Square there is a place I happened across in the summer – West Register Street (confusingly not anywhere near West Register House; bare that in mind later) home to the Voodoo Rooms (of Fringe show fame), and the Cafe Royal. I’m yet to try this excellent looking establishment, but its red, black and gold exterior made it the ripe for a little playing about.
From here I ventured down on to Princes Street. If you don’t live in or around Edinburgh you might be less aware of our delightful tram project and its never-ending saga of incompetence. Let’s just say, it and its creators are not flavor of the month. The latest woeful tale is that (the road part of) Princes Street is once again closed. For a year. No biggie. This means we’re getting treated to the city’s newest tourist attraction, in the form of red and white blocks and miles of metal fencing. I’ll let you decide on its merit (as I’m so clearly neutral about the whole situation…).
After a short amount of time finding what I was actually in town for I was once again bored. This initially resulted in me becoming distracted in Waterstones (a big book shop) for about an hour before deciding that I might go home. It was about this point that I discovered that I was going to have to wait about half an hour for the next bus. Wonderful.
I somehow managed to take about 25 minutes to get from George Street to the West End (a five minute walk, if you’re feeling incredibly slow) and ended up with a lot of photos from in and around Charlotte Square. Apart from resulting in a post here the other day which featured my calendar, mud and Prince Albert (I’m not joking) I got some really nice shots of the south side of the square.
Amongst these pictures there were quite a few of West Register House (one of the buildings of the National Archives of Scotland, but at the opposite end of the New Town from West Register Street, which is to the west of Register House, which itself is in the East End; I did warn you to pay attention earlier…). This is hardly surprising as it’s the biggest, and most imposing buildings there. The light was slightly odd, making some of the photos a little dull, so again I played with them a little on photoshop.
