Homecoming

£50 of train ticket vouchers, required time off work and a whim mean that I have just returned from a little domestic vacation. A sprint up to Scotland and a dash down to London made for a very busy 10 days, but with lots of good people, food and alcohol, so I feel like I have entirely earned the exhaustion that is settling in.

You may recall that about 6 months ago I was feeling a little homesick. This trip was a perfect opportunity for me to try and fix that. I went up to Edinburgh to visit my friend and fellow St Andrean and we took a day trip over to The Bubble for a nostalgic look/eat/drink around. For those of you that have visited St Andrews I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean when I say it really gets ahold of you. If you haven't been, I hope the pictures in the rest of this post help you to understand a little.

It also just so happened that the day of our trip was the first anniversary of my graduation. The universe did a very good job at trying to overwhelm me.

The last time I stood here, exactly a year on.

St Andrews is so wonderfully historic and beautiful it's almost impossible not to take a thousand photographs of it. I have endless photographs of the cathedral ruins stored in my photo albums, and yet I am always compelled to take new ones each time I see it. I wonder if I'll be able to trace any differences in my photographic style or the building itself if I keep doing this in the future.

Despite living so close for so long, I'd never really visited Edinburgh before except for an hour or two between trains on the way home. I was very lucky that Scotland was being uncharacteristically accommodating and sunny which means that my image of the city is nothing but sunshine! Although, unfortunately, also a vision of sunburn.

I hadn't expected to see this, so what a superb added bonus!

Scottish National Gallery.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Rabbie Burns surveying his surroundings at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

I really, really loved Edinburgh. So much history, art and beautiful buildings. It seems almost too good to be true. I can definitely see myself returning at some point in the future, perhaps for a few years.

Although maybe I should go back when it's raining.