Tuesday 7 May 2024--Another late start...I have a leisurely breakfast at a café on George Street, then pop into Royal Mile Whiskies for a blether with Mark. Then I commence a pub crawl, starting with the Ensign Ewart, the closest pub to Edinburgh Castle. I don't know what the music playing there is, but it's kind of moody, and I like it. Down the Royal Mile I go, and into Fleshmarket Close. The Halfway House is improbably and charmingly situated in the close, more than halfway down. I don't envy whoever it is that delivers kegs here. I find the interior not so beguiling. Maybe it's just the music, classic rock of an aggressive sort, which I do know and don't much like. Then I'm in the New Town for a pint at the Oxford Bar, Inspector Rebus' favored watering hole. Follow that with a couple drams in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society rooms on Queen Street, which I've never visited before; I don't know why. I feel a little underdressed, but the dress code notes only that flip-flops are verboten, and shorts must be tailored to the knee. Leaving Queen Street, I turn onto Hanover Street on my way back to the flat, and stop at the Hanover Tap for a last pint. I'd probably like the place if I were forty years or so younger.

[I'm sure I must have had dinner somewhere along the way, but I did not log it, and don't remember it. I don't know why that would be.]