Tag Archives: Royal Yacht Britannia

The Proclaimers – Sunshine on Leith

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I was in the kitchen the other day and for some reason they were talking about The Proclaimers on Radio 2 – what was their best song? Most of the listeners said that Sunshine on Leith was their favourite, mind you the DJ did say that it was mainly people from Leith who were emailing in and it was a lovely sunny day in Leith at that time. So here are The Proclaimers singing it at T In the Park, the music festival which is held near us every year.

It’s the Hibs football fans’ anthem and it’s just a shame that today’s match result couldn’t at least have been a wee bit less of a gubbing for them, especially as The Proclaimers are fans.

Here’s a video of the fans singing it in happier times.

We still haven’t managed to find the time to get back to Leith to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia, why do the weekends always go so quickly?

Just because I love The Wee Proclaimers here they are again.

Edinburgh Botanics to Leith

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Yesterday was probably about the best day of summer so far and we decided to drive to the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and walk from there to Leith, Edinburgh’s port. Neither of us had ever been to Leith before, like most port areas it had a pretty sleazy reputation but in recent years it has been gentrified and I suppose ‘untarted’ would be the best description, rather than tarted up. We walked along the part of the Water of Leith which leads there and it was quite a bit longer than I thought it was going to be. It was a sweltering 21 C which is about 70 F and I was sans sun-hat, luckily there was a nice breeze now and again. This is an inscription on the path to Leith. I thought it was quite pithy.

Inscription

On reaching Leith we decided to walk on to the shopping centre Ocean Terminal because that is where the Royal Yacht Britannia is permanently berthed and as it’s now a museum the idea was to have a look around it but by the time we got there we were too tired to take the tour, bearing in mind that we had a long walk back to the car ahead of us, so next time we’ll drive there. This is a photograph of the stern of the yacht with a hideous modern cruise ship in the background. I thought it was a block of flats at first, these modern ships are ugly big lumps compared with the beautiful elegant lines of the old ships.

Royal Yacht Britannia

Ocean Terminal is supposed to be a wonderful shopping experience. It isn’t. It’s the usual shops in a soulless atmosphere. So we wasted no time there and started on the long trudge back to the car. Thirst got the better of us and we stopped off at a pub in Leith, we really needed a rest too. I think the pub we were in is just beyond the building with the tower. I was quite surprised how continental the buildings on Leith waterfront look. It must have been the Dutch influence I think, they used Dutch pan-tiles as ballast for ships in the past which is why the old cottages on the east coast of Scotland tend to have pan-tiled roofs.

Leith

So a good day out was finished off with ice-cream from the stall across from the botanics, very tasty. I had maple and walnut and sticky toffee fudge. What with that and the cider I don’t think I’ll have lost any weight despite the very long walk!