Last night I saw the annual Fireworks Concert that marks the end of the Edinburgh Festival. I don’t know if it was something to do with being spoilt by the Olympic fireworks or just because of the idiots around us on Calton Hill but I wasn’t as impressed as last year. Also unlike last year I somehow didn’t step foot in the Spiegeltent all month. That’s not to say that I had a quiet August of it what with leaving parties, birthdays, barbeques and the like.
My plan for the next couple of months is to get back into some semblence of fitness. I’ve not really done much exercise apart from a few short games of Ultimate since March and it’s beginning to show. I felt a very definite wobble around my middle when I was running down the stairs the other day and it didn’t feel good. However, my mum claims that she thinks that I “suit a bit of weight” and will try to stir double cream through my porage whenever I’m visiting.
The weather hasn’t exactly helped me get out and do anything as it feels like it has rained every single day since getting back from my travels. I’ve finally got around to taking my gym membership off hold so I should be able to motivate myself to do something active now that I’m paying fees once again!
While the rest of the country was busy watching Super Saturday and the British “great haul of China“, I joined 167 other scavengers solving cryptic clues, seeking out items and performing tasks all across Edinburgh for the Festival Scavenger Hunt. If you saw people running around the city carrying obscure items like kitchen sinks yesterday then it’s a fair bet that they were also taking part.
Unfortunately we didn’t win but we did have a lot of fun along the way.
People initially asked which charity the hunt was in aid of but were more curious when we explained what was actually going on. I’m looking forward to seeing what has been made of all the submissions for a week-long exhibition at the City Art Centre that starts tomorrow.
I’d like to say a big thank you to the following people and businesses who helped me out during the day: The Dress Fabric Shop, Twigs Florists, The Bruntsfield Hotel, Cockburns Delicatessen, Greggs Bakery, Witchery Tours and the friends I pestered with phone calls and text messages. Twitter proved useless yet again. Obviously thanks also go to the organisers, my team mates and Whitespace for entering the teams and allowing us to use the office as a base of operations.
A full list of the clues and their point value follow.
Continue reading ‘Seek and ye shall find’
It’s Sunday night and I have the mother of all Monday fears. It’ll be my first day back in the office tomorrow after taking three months off. Thanks to keeping this blog updated on my travels, my typing isn’t too bad but I think getting my coding back up to speed may prove to be more of an issue!
I’ve been meaning to sit down and attempt to kick-start my mind a little this weekend but I’ve been otherwise engaged with catch-up drinks, birthday celebrations, leaving parties and soaking up the early Festival atmosphere on the Royal Mile and Spiegeltent. It’s apparent that I have missed the brief respite granted to the denizens of Edinburgh that occurs after most of the students depart and before the tourists arrive en masse.
In between the aforementioned distractions I did manage to get my head around a lookaround-based regular expression that was bugging me before I went on my travels so the weekend wasn’t a complete write-off on the programming front.
