I awoke this morning feeling much-renewed after a weekend spent alternating between shivers and sweats. All the aches were gone, and I lay in bed for a while revelling in feeling normal. I looked forward to jumping out of bed, getting washed, getting back out into the world of the living, and doing my work. Most of all… I wanted an omelette!
I’ll chalk the latter up to my weekly call with my folks, in which my father often gives a description of whatever great meal he’s tackling next (he’s a wonderful cook). His verbal portrait of Saturday’s breakfast — particularly as it was contrasted with my usual breakfast of nothing at all — stuck in my head. So today, with my appetite returned, I wanted my omelette!
After an hour of walking around town, and with noon approaching, it was clear I wasn’t going to get it. So I settled for the closest approximation and went to Snax, a little hole-in-the-wall place tucked behind Princes Street, bought two morning rolls with fried eggs in them, and ate them as I walked across the North Bridge.
Eating these rolls is tricky, because there’s always one bite that makes the yolk burst out the side of the thing. I forgot about that with the first one and got a mess all over my left hand, but with the second roll I slowed down and ate it while leaning on the stone wall outside the Scotsman Hotel, looking out over Princes Street Gardens, where the Christmas market is being built again. I managed a controlled detonation on the second sandwich.
(I’m realising as I write this that I’m falling into the trap I recently pointed out to a writer-friend: using lots of specific place-names that won’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t been to the place I’m talking about.)
I dropped byWord Power Bookshop to re-stock them with my book, and spent the afternoon doing my weekly planning in a couple of local cafes. Even though the world through the windows was grey and rainy, I was very happy to see it from that perspective.
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