goodbye edinburgh

I'll try to upload some pics to go with this soon...,

also, keep an eye out for my adventures in the isle of mull..., (I lost the post i'd written a couple of weeks ago.)

I arrived in Edinburgh expecting to spend a week or 2, and left 6 weeks later. The hospitality i received from Reg and his flatemates, Annalise, Julia and Patrick was wonderful, and the community of Destiny Church Edinburgh were simply amazing.

Normally I would go into a place, and come out thrilled about the scenery, rocks, and other things, with a whole heap of spectacular photos to prove my point. Edinburgh has some nice old buildings, a few rocks here and there, and i went on a couple of outings a little further north to see some pretty exciting countryside, and had some days of beautiful clear skies and lying round in the park but much of the time, it was raining, and i didn't take many photos of exciting places... Yet, my time in Edinburgh has touched me more than i had ever imagined it would.

When i arrived, Annalise mentioned that Destiny were fitting out a new building in a suburb called Gorgie, having reached capacity in their existing building in leith, (with most seats full at 3 services every Sunday) So, I figured that it could be fun to go there for a couple of days and help out with construction. (I figured i'd spend a day or 2 there, and perhaps volunteer at the Edinburgh bicycle...., a very cool charity set up with the intention of providing bikes to people who couldn't otherwise afford them. Unfortunately, i never made it there... On my first day at Gorgie I met a few cool people who made me want to return..., so, on the next rainy day, i was back. I figured i'd spend about another week in Edinburgh, siteseeing on fine days, and building on rainy ones..., It seems that I was meant to be building, Edinburgh has just been through one of the wettest summers anyone can remember!

I assumed that helping at Gorgie would leave me feeling warm fuzzies when i left, but i didn't expect to meet such earnest, people, or to be spiritually challenged to the extent that i was.

I don't have room to mention everyone who I'm going to deeply miss, and i wish i'd managed to get a lot more photos of people while i was there, but that shouldn't matter, as when i was saying goodbye yesterday, everyone seemed convinced that I'll be back sometime soon, and they could well be right. After all, I've done hand stands, head stands and cartwheels in plenty of church buildings in my time, but last Sunday was the first time i've ever done a head stand in the middle of the sermon.., (and possibly the longest one i've ever done too, I was pretty close to passing out by the time i'd finished. Sunday was lovely way to finish my time in Edinburgh, hanging out with cool people all day long, eating baked potatoes, going to a cool little galery...and the fact that they went out of their way to put on such an amazing fireworks display, just for me, was incredible!