We had a good weekend with Bishop Jeyapaul and his wife Violet staying with us, very easy guests and happy to be able to take things at a slower pace than back home in India I think. I think too that they enjoyed being able to relax and be 'ordinary' people - well ordinary but wearing a purple clerical shirt and large Iona Cross. He bought the cross while here in the '70's studying at St John's College in Nottingham. He spent a week on Iona and got the cross then never dreaming it would be worn as a pectoral cross and that he would be a Bishop.
Saturday morning the Moderator came for coffee - after making scones though I abandoned them for the questionable pleasure of forking out £95 to the dentist to put a temporary filling in my tooth where my gold inlay had decided to part company from the rest of my tooth. Admittedly he did come to the surgery especially to treat me but even so! By the way, how come gold inlays cost a fortune but you never get a refund when they break and can't be used again?
We had a quiet day on Saturday afternoon, avoiding the rain, a little shopping but other wise stayed around home and an early night to catch up on their time change a little. Church on Sunday morning when the Bishop preached, followed by  a fellowship lunch - we have one every month but changed the date to suit their visit - simple fare, very sociable and relaxed. Later on in the afternoon, we went to Holyrood Palace, they have a serious problem at their entrance desk, there were only about 20 folks queuing to get in but it took almost 30 minutes to get to the desk to pay, a very slow system and one which will be a real problem once they get summer numbers of tourists in.

On Monday a tour of North and South Queensferry seeing the Bridges and crossing the Road one. Took lots of pics of flowers and plants... reminded me of when I was in India and taking pics. We went to Craigie Farm for coffee and picked some strawberries and raspberries which we then had for lunch at home. Monday evening, our guests moved to the Rectory as planned.

Initially we had intended that I would go up to Aberdeen for my birthday, but we have realised that in fact I needed time at home to pack and organise for the forthcoming holidays.
Yesterday was my birthday, we took a trip down into East Lothian, then had lunch at Craigie again before taking Ali to work in South Queensferry. In the evening, Colin and I had dinner in the Tower.
On our way home we played at tourists in the shops at the top of the Royal Mile to round off a nice day.