Welcome to the final chapter of the story detailing our trip to Edinburgh. If you missed the others they can be found, here and here.
Seeing as I was feeling ok, and because we’d sorta missed out on our ‘special’ meal the night before, on New Year’s Day night we decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal out. We’d seen an article in the Guardian about the best 10 restaurants in Edinburgh and after a quick perusal and a few phone calls decided to go to Wedgwood who were putting on a special New Year’s Day tasting menu. We got dressed up, and looked the part…and then put on a few more layers, which were definitely not dressy (we’d packed for warmth, not style) and we headed out.
When we walked in we knew it was a pretty nice place, everyone was dressed in designer clothing and the waitresses and host were exceptionally presented. We felt a little ashamed of our waterproof, puffy winter jackets but we knew once we got to our table and were able to take them off we’d fit in a little better.
C was just telling our host how messy our evening had been the night before when WHAM, my foot, wet from the rain outside, slipped on the staircase and I took a huge tumble. I landed on the stairs with a thud and in the process managed to knock C down as well, as he was not very far in front of me, and he in turn knocked down the host who was directly in front of him!!! What an entrance huh?!? There was a waitress standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the three of us to come down who was thankfully spared from our game of dominoes.
Mortified, and in extreme pain, I answered the host’s and C’s concerned questions of ‘are you ok’, ‘are you hurt’ with, ‘yes I’m fine, really’ trying desperately to move swiftly out of the spotlight and sit at our table. Part of me wanted to turn around and go home, part of me wanted to go to the hospital and part of me wanted to stay and pretend like nothing ever happened and try to regain some of my dignity by ordering some expensive champagne and having a civilised meal.
As I was dusting myself off I realised I’d torn a hole in my jeans. It was small, and my top covered it so I continued on. Shamed, and in excruciating pain I did the only thing I am ever able to do when I am suffering from extreme embarrassment; I laughed. I could not stop laughing that nervous laugh of mine, and C laughed with me, which only made me laugh harder (and probably meant we caused a little more of a stir).
It wasn’t until later that I realised I’d also hit the stairs so hard I’d torn a hole in my underwear and I had a HUGE bruise on my bum already black as night. It is now 8 Jan and I am STILL in pain and am having trouble sitting down in certain positions, I think I may have cracked a bone or something. I also discovered yesterday (on my first day back at work) that cycling at the moment is a HUGE mistake and I am now feeling a little worse off than I was yesterday.
Aside from the classy, terrible entrance we made, we had the MOST amazing meal. It was a seven course tasting menu and everything we had was exquisite. There were a few curious things on the menu such as the sweet corn ice cream, served with the rabbit terrine, or the honey roast parsnip crème brûlée with thyme ice cream, served for dessert but it was all incredibly mouth watering and faultless and despite our scepticism, they worked well. I even tried haggis again and this time was pleasantly surprised.
While the portion sizes were small, leaving C a little concerned he’d be hungry at the end of it, we were completely happy with the meal and were really full by the end of it. They even finished it off with these cute little pieces of fudge served in little gift boxes that they gave us as we were leaving. Such a nice touch.
The service was incredible. I have to give them points for their complete composure and professionalism when I took my fall, but even the rest of the service was amazing – unobtrusive, slick and informative. A lovely end to what had been an awesome, if a little rocky, trip to Edinburgh… or so we thought.
In the morning we had to get up early to get to the airport. Everything was going smoothly – we got to the bus on time, we got to the airport with time to spare to have a quick breakfast and get through security, our flight was on time – all seemed in order. And then when we got on the plane I reached into my bag to turn my phone off only to realise I didn’t have it. I often have these mild panics where I think I’ve lost my phone and C sits there shaking his head and waiting until the moment I realise it’s really just in my bottomless pit of a handbag, but this time it really wasn’t there. I emptied my whole bag, got out of my seat and pulled our stuff out of the overhead locker to check my coat – nothing. I started to shake, I was so stressed out, my whole life is on that phone, work emails, photos, contacts, passwords, not to mention the cost of an iPhone! I have never EVER lost a phone in my entire phone-owning life. Not even in high school or in my often-drunken uni days.
I called my number off C’s phone half expecting it to be either turned off or for it to not be answered. I mean, who loses their iPhone and actually gets it back? Luckily a very kind man answered and said he’d found it on the bus and would happily post it back to London for me. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, nor how impressed I am that there are still kind, honest people left in the world! I also can’t believe how lucky I was that someone like him found it.
Relaxed and relieved we thought it was definitely time we took ourselves home and just as we thought nothing else could go wrong, C left his passport on the plane!! Thankfully we realised while the plane was still stationed waiting for the next lot of people to board the plane and we got it back.
When we finally got home, there was nothing we could do except crawl into bed and stay there for the rest of the afternoon, every now and then having a little giggle at our misfortunes, or a sigh of relief at our luck!
Almost English 