Self-isolation, Day Thirteen, being the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Twenty-four hours to go.

The essence -- the essence, I'm telling you -- of living in Edinburgh is walking several miles in the course of a day, just doing normal things, experiencing the ever-changing light, the quiet beauty of the buildings, marveling at the impeccably behaved Scottish dogs.

Obviously I knew what I was getting myself into when I came here. Two weeks of isolation for the sake of two or three months of Edinburgh seemed, and was, a sensible bargain. But I will be very glad indeed when life gets back to normal, or, rather, to that super-charged beyond-normal that characterizes life in my favorite city.

My first full day will be Michaelmas: Morning Prayer and Eucharist at the Cathedral, then getting set up in my office in Hope Park Square.

But the fourteen days will expire, by my reckoning, tomorrow evening. I have a reservation for dinner at Cafe St Honore, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it. After two weeks of microwaving ready meals brought to my door by Deliveroo, it will be quite a treat.

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