Our Local Climbing Gym

Usually things in Scotland tend to be smaller than things in Canada: houses, cars, yards, pubs, trees, mountains and snowpack for example. But the Edinburgh International Climbing Centre in Ratho is the one, BIG, exception.

Kinda like the VanKellner's basement, only a few more routes.

In case this wall isn't steep enough, it can be made steeper.

Note the guy in the white square 'flying' through the air, attached to the rail above him. Sketchy.

Blue Forest Goes Under the Knife

My front shocks stopped working properly, so super-James decided to dissect them and find out why. Here's our excellent bike stand: our bike rack attached to the window frame in our living room.

Dirty shock

Dirty oil that came out of my shocks.

Nice shiny cleaned damper with other important bits.

Dr. Floyer, ready to inject.

Blue oil goes up top, red oil down below.
She's all fixed up and bouncy now.

Sushi Night at Hollybank

Black Cat Loses It

I introduce "Black Cat". She lives here with us at Hollybank Terrace, though she accidentally spent the first two weeks of our time here stuck in a neighbour's coal cellar. She wears a magnet on her collar which lets the cat door know it's her and not some random neibourhood cat trying to get in. I gave her a can of tuna to lick out the other day and she ended up wearing it.

"Uh - guys, can you get this thing off me. I can't lick it when it's attached."

"Really, it's not THAT funny. Now get it off."

"GET IT OFF!"

Druggie

Home from the hospital with a bag of drugs.

I still have a bit of a rash on my neck and right arm, but overall it is waaaaaay better. The doctors took some swabs of my oozing rash, but for some reason they were unable to grow anything from them, so they're still not sure what I had. It was probably impetigo, but it's not certain. It seems I've acquired a knack for getting hard-to-diagnose weird diseases. So far on my list: malaria in 1996, west nile in 2003 and giardia this past summer - none of which were ever confirmed.

Snacks

Itchy

I woke up Wednesday morning with an itchy eye-lid and by that evening I had a couple more red itchy patches on my chin. I dropped into the local clinic and was diagnosed with impetigo and given some oral antibiotics for it. By Saturday morning, I looked like this:

I sent Dr.-to-be Sullivan this photo and got some pretty strict instructions to get myself into a hospital and hooked up to some IV antibiotics pronto. I've been in the infectious diseases unit since Sunday night now and I am writing this while hooked up to said magical IV antibiotics. The swelling is gone, the itching is going and the oozing is under control. I only wish I wasn't missing so much school.

Lunchtime Wander through the Glass Houses

The Desert

The Tropics