Surgical Strike Day Trip - Traquair House Medieval Fayre

Traquair House is worth a visit anytime of year but we love the Medieval Fayre in the 3rd weekend of May. There is such an atmosphere in the walled garden when it is filled with reenactors, period music and craft stalls. The jousting and other events are always brilliant, and our children love the adventure playground and animals. Between my husband and me, we have been going to Traquair House Medieval Fayre off and on for 10 years. It is the perfect example of what we call a Surgical Strike Day Trip.

Fast Facts: Traquair House during the Medieval Fayre (3rd weekend in May)

• Distance from Edinburgh: 29 miles
• Using public transport: 2 hours on the X62
• History: 900 years of pure awesomeness including a stint as a royal hunting lodge and a daughter of the house who eloped with an American student who later became a Founding Father
• What there is to do: tour the house and find the secret monk's passageway, the gardens are cool too, adventure playground, and the medieval fayre is a must!
• Website: http://www.traquair.co.uk/

Pros:

• Fresh country air
• Great ambiance in walled garden 
• Saw willow weaving
• Pottage-making
• Armor - including witty, learned reenactor who answered our questions about a particularly fine blue helmet
• Embroidery 
• Torture devices
• Picnic near Gaita the medieval music band
• Toilets 75% clean (it helped someone had thought to put out extra liquid soap)
• Hog roast 100% delicious according to the husband
• Canon - I mean falconet - manned with a real 'minion', a gunner team, black powder and another extremely knowledgeable reenactor who happily spent half an hour showing us his gun
• Adventure playground - this is always a favorite with the kids!
• Farm animals like goats to see
• Falcons and other birds of prey to see - we got to pet a snow owl
• Jousting - including horses dressed in their knights' colors and a man dressed as a Saracen warrior
• Archery exhibition
• Childrens army - the kids loved getting to beat up some good-natured reenactors with foam weapons!
• Icecream - it was delicious, what was left of it
• Field playing - lots of space for the kids to do their own reenacting with swords! 

Cons:

• No sidewalk for a great portion of the road between Innerleithen and Traquair House - not the safest with kids in tow!
• it took us 2 hours to travel 29 miles
• Icecream ran out in various flavours
• Balloon swords tend to pop - leaving hysterical toddlers
• No mead on tap - there was mead tasting and you could buy a bottle but D remember when you could buy a cup of mead like you can do with ale in the food tent

We did not try to do the maze, driftwood workshop, make-your-own helmet or the house with a 2 year old. So there are definitely lots of things to do at Traquair.

Our day trip lasted almost 12 hours and we had relatively few meltdowns so we saw it as a success!

Timings

8:15 left the house

8:30 got first bus from outer area of Edinburgh where we live to York Place

9:30 caught second bus X62 to Innerleithen, run by First - there was a spot for our buggy in the wheelchair spot

11:00 walked 2 miles to Traquair

5:17 caught X62 bus toward Edinburgh

7:30 got home

Spendings

• £10 each on advance tickets (kids under 4 are free!)
• £28 on transport
• £12 on ale, hogroast, icecream
• Total = £60

For a Surgical Strike Day Trip, we felt we got a lot for our time and money. We saw jousting, birds of prey, archery, period-correct costumes, and got to interact with history in a special way. 

We expect the peregrination to Traquair House will become an annual family tradition! Traquair House also has a free open day connected to the St. Andrew's Day open days and puts on other events throughout the year.

Surgical Strike Day Trips from Edinburgh

Anyone who has traveled in Europe knows it is expensive. As a study abroad student, it can seem daunting if not impossible to make the most of being in Europe.

If you are already paying for accommodation in Europe in the form of longish term student housing or you have the ability to stay with friends for free, consider taking day trips to defray the cost of traveling. What do I mean?

Say you have 300 pounds that you saved or borrowed from your parents to travel in Europe. You could either blow all of that on 

• a weekend in London, Prague or Oslo

OR

• a day trip to a castle 20 miles away

• a day trip to a ruined abbey 30 miles away

• a day trip to a fashion museum in a quaint village 45 miles away

• a day trip to a railway museum and afternoon tea 40 miles away

• a day trip to a royal hunting lodge

• a day trip to a famous lake and beautiful spot

What I am saying is that you can make that 300 pounds go into 6 day trips or 1 weekend away by cutting out the cost of overnighting.

behind: Dunnattor Castle, near Stonehaven

This analysis is based on the idea of a couple - a guy and a girl, or two girls/guys - traveling together and that each day trip would cost no more than 50 pounds - which requires you to take a picnic and use non-1st-class public transport. 

Doing solo trips, you might be able to do a day trip for 20 or 25 pounds and even get a cup of coffee.

Cut out the cost of dead time

Doing day trips will almost definitely give you more hours of sightseeing. 

A lot of what we spend money on is where we sleep, which is 'dead time' as far as soaking up atmosphere, learning interesting facts and actually seeing Europe is concerned. No matter what hotel booking websites say, your hostel or b&b is not going to be your favorite part of your trip.

Traquair House

European Capitals - the right way to see Europe?

You want to go to London, Prague or Oslo? You've spent your whole life wondering how big 'Big Ben' actually is, or it's your dream to see Prague at midnight, or your grandfather was from Oslo and said it was the wonderful beautiful city in the world? That's fine. If that's really what you want to do, do it! 

In my experience, most people think they have to go to European capitals to do Europe properly. If you are going in the summer however, Rome with the heat of crowds might be unbearable, whereas the Scottish Borders would be perfect.

Off the beaten track

A lot of people who travel come away wishing they had actually spoken to more locals, gone to an authentic pub and knew something about the culture they visited.

The best way to do that is to avoid the major tourist traps and do the lesser-known sites. Go for lesser-known cities (Edinburgh rather than London, Bayeux rather than Paris, Bath rather than London) or even better - villages you've maybe never heard of for example Peebles, Berwick-upon-Tweed or Stonehaven! Every village has its own story and you can often find hidden gems nearby.

Some of our best experiences have been exploring ruined castles, fairytale woodland, and rolling countryside that was basically in the middle of nowhere.

You might be surprised at the amazing opportunities within easy shooting distance of your university or study experience.

The other nice thing about day trips is you can wait till the weather is right. Who wants to waste their entire week of holiday in Skye during a week-long deluge? Spread out the fun and choose your timing to commune with nature. Or if you're limited for time, choose places like Edinburgh which have a good mixture of indoor and outdoor activities.

Day Trips with Kids

When I was little I was a phenomenal brat and the situation inevitably exploded epically after 3 hours. My parents came up with the rule that we could never be away from home for more than 3-5 hours. This strategy was labeled 'The Surgical Strike.'

Holy Island, Lindisfarne

My kids aren't nearly the brats I was as a kid and they can do about 6-9 hours without flipping out. I know because that's the point on our international flights that turns.

There's nothing you can do about international travel taking a loooong time but there IS a solution for family holidays. The Family Day trip is our vision of the Surgical Strike.

Pros to the Day Trip model of family holidays:

• never away from home longer than 6-9 hours (though now that my youngest is almost out of the Terrible 2's, we can do 12 hours if there is icecream, naps, play parks, friends, or other distractions)

• saves money that might have been spent on hotels/B+B's/caravans/self-catering cottages

• kids sleep better in their own beds

• you can pack the kids' favorite snacks and a picnic, saving on food spending (without a car, we would never be able to pack enough food for a week's holiday anyway - not unless we took a massive suitcase on the train)

• you can choose good weather - if you book a week's holiday in Skye in a cabin and then the weather report is slated to be terrible, there's nothing you can do; whereas if you are hopping on a train or bus to go 10 or 20 miles away, you can wait till the last minute and check the weather forecast, almost guaranteeing good weather (almost because this is Scotland and it rains here - a lot)

• you can assess kids' moods on the morning

• you can spread out the fun to pace your kids

Cons:

• You are limited to about 3 and a half hours' travel

• It can be a loooong day if the roads or rail lines are unexpectedly closed or delayed on the way home

• You may procrastinate and never get around to doing it as it requires laying out the clothes the night before and checking the weather forecast and then the next day getting up early, making a picnic and getting out the door before 10 am.

I find with the kids, the more adaptable the situation is to their needs, the better. The Surgical Strike Day Trip model for family holidaying works that way for us.

Also see:

Arniston House - 13 miles from Edinburgh
Traquair House - 29 miles from Edinburgh

Abbotsford - 40 miles from Edinburgh
Stirling - 42 miles from Edinburgh
Dunfermline - 45 miles from Edinburgh
Lindisfarne - 70 miles from Edinburgh
Bamburgh - 76 miles from Edinburgh
Sweetheart Abbey - 80 miles from Edinburgh
York - 200 miles from Edinburgh

What I am telling my little sister about traveling in Europe this year or what I wish I had known on my first solo trip

I made a lot of mistakes on my first trip abroad alone. I got terribly sunburned. I forgot things at the place I was staying. I over-packed. 

Europe has changed a lot in the last few decades but particularly with the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the East over the last few years. This has huge ramifications for single women traveling abroad. 

Here are my top tips for any single gal:

• Wear sunscreen as normal - I did not realise this but it is possible to get sunburned in Scotland and other European countries but YES it is.
• Take usual prescriptions - a lot of people's trips have been ruined by forgetting their prescriptions. I knew someone to come to the UK who was allergic to something, and spent the whole trip sneezing and with watery eyes. 
• Wear head scarves - not like Muslims, like elegant French ladies or Audrey Hepburn 
  
• The drinking age is 18 rather than 21 in some European countries - always question why a dude is buying you a drink, what he wants, etc. 
• Not everyone in a pub is deeply suspect and it might be okay to trade email addresses with someone (I wish I had for my husband instead of making him run searches on my name for two months on Facebook)
• Wear a security pouch with most of your money and personal identification info on you - it's always worth keeping your change in a separate jacket pocket so it's easy to pull out when you are getting on the bus
• If you have to catch a late night train or bus by yourself, try to spend the dead time in a well-lit Internet cafe or see if your b and b or hostel will let you wait in the common room till it's time to go. 
• Try to set up door-to-door transport if you can afford it and if you would have to walk more than five minutes by yourself in semi-dark or dark streets - i.e. order a taxi
• If you do feel under threat, go beserk and scream and make a fuss
• I wouldn't judge anyone who decided to wear a fake wedding ring but I don't think that will protect you from the real baddies
• When in doubt, travel to Scotland, which is much safer than most of Europe
• Take care when using atm machines - I would say don't use them at all if you can help it
• Take student id - it may get you discounts on tickets
• Fly in and out of airports with regular flights to your destination - that way if you get delayed, it will be hours not a whole day that you have to wait around - I once planned a 5 day trip to Scotland but got delayed in Memphis for 24 hours, so I effectively lost 20% of my trip
• Take a backpack instead of roller suitcase - something that has happened several times to me is on small connecting flights they force everyone with carry on luggage like wheelie cases to 'gate check' at the last minute. They say there is no space in the overhead compartments. If you have a backpack then you can promise to keep it on your lap or under the seat in front and thus avoid your luggage being taken. Often the delay of unloading 'gate checked ' bags is the difference between making your connecting flight or not. If you check a massive suitcase like I did, I guarantee you will not wear or use the majority of what you pack and you'll have to haul it around with you like a millstone round your neck. You can't just nip out for a long weekend to Prague if you feel so moved when you have a ton of stuff. It's much better to run out of something and 'have' to buy a scarf or some memento in Europe, rather than bring everything you think you could possibly use.
• Pack light - clothes you love, can sleep in, etc
• Learn to hand-wash clothes in a sink and hang on a radiator or rail to dry. It's easier than trying to find a laundromat on a whip-round tour. It means you can also pack lighter. On a road trip in France once, I brought only two or three outfits for each person and just washed anything that got messy in the sink every night. Some b&bs have heated towel rails - these seem to have been a fad about twenty years ago - and those dry your clothes super fast! You can also ask if your host has an airing cupboard, which is a closet where the boiler lives and hence is warmer.
• Research the destination before you go - I always draw my own map even if it's not exactly to scale, and fill the backside of it with taxi numbers, American consulate numbers, and credit card cancellation numbers.
• Check in with family regularly - the best thing my professor made us do on our trip abroad was to blog. I think we had to blog every day but I can't quite remember if it was 4 times a week or what. It helped me remember my trip better and I also have a reference to meeting my husband before I knew it was him. He found the blog reference with his excellent stalking skills which I am very grateful for or we would never have seen each other after that pub. 
• Find grocery store - this can save you a lot of money. In the UK, it is 10 to 20 times more expensive to eat out than to eat at home. A bowl of lentil soup which I could make for under 20 p will go for 5 quid. I could make a Mexican feast for 8 people for 10 pounds but the shops will sell one measly plate of enchiladas for 12.50. I could go on but basically just find a grocery store. Or bring zip lock bags full of coffee and other essentials.
• Wear dark sunglasses to avoid the problem of making eye contact and smiling at Mediterranean men and them seeing this as invitation 
  
• Never go out at night without a group, preferably including two muscular young guys. If you are wondering why google the Cologne and Hamberg attacks, where girls were systematically separated from other girls or even boyfriends to be sexually assaulted or raped by gangs of immigrant men. Most days of the year this won't happen but it is better to be safe than sorry.
• Never go out with something low cut, open-backed or showing thighs-down if you can help it. Unlike Christians who take responsibility for lustful feelings and whom Jesus told to pluck out the other eye if it leads to sin, Muslim men get angry at immodesty and then use the anger to attack the girl and often molest her. Talk about blaming the victim. If they like how you look and think they can get away with harassing you, they will. A lot of the Syrian 'children' brought to safety are now out-of-control 19-year-olds without parents in a foreign country. Think about it.

It is a wonderful opportunity to get to travel. Just be sure to be prepared and wise if you are a single girl traveling alone! 

The Pedestrian Life with Kids

As if parenting wasn't a marathon on its own, we decided to do it without a car. 

Of course we got our in-laws to pick us up from the hospital after having the baby. After that I thought it would be smooth sailing. Here are my initial thoughts:

Pros:

• this will help me lose my baby weight!
• healthy lifestyle example for the kids
• good for the baby too
• creating the sort of the world I want my kids to grow up in - with fewer emissions, living responsibly
• giving the frugal example to my kids

Cons:

• a tad slower maybe
• less motion sickness while walking
• more motion sickness when using public transport - buses and trains tend to make me more sick than cars

Almost 5 years later here are the updated listings:

Pros:

• it did help me lose baby weight and then a bit more which left me a bit thin and frail and open to every cold and infection (including mastitis - three times! Okay maybe this should be a con. It IS possible to lose too much weight and run yourself ragged.)
• healthy....ish
• living responsibly, smaller footprint
• giving frugal examples to the kids
• not having to strap in children into car seats - I mean seriously car seats are mind bogglingly difficult sometimes. They leap in the buggy and off we go! A lot less twisting and bending over shadowy carseats is probably good for my back.
• being able to pay more attention to my kids - when driving, you can't make eye contact and talk to your kid like on the bus!
• napping - both children can nap on the way to a destination or one child can nap while the other plays, rather than everyone being locked in the car for the duration of baby's nap

Cons:

• curbs - the city centre is better about having slopes for buggies and wheelchairs, these days in the outskirts we do a lot of lifting the buggy over tall curbs
• pushing a buggy makes your butt look bigger because of the angle you have to walk at
• the baby who wants to breastfeed ALL THE TIME - I know some people have a knack for slings where the baby can continually suck but I never managed that. Partially because in Edinburgh there is always someone looking down at you from a tall building so in a rural landscape, you could probably get away with it, but not in Edinburgh. Also if you walk an hour with a baby in a sling, things come undone no matter how carefully you set them up.
• everyone judging your parenting and life choices - seriously in a car no one can tell if you have two kids under the age of two but on the street you can not only see the condemnation in their eyes but hear the shocked murmuring ('Do you suppose they're twins?'...'Hasn't she ever heard of birth control?')
• When you are far away from shops and friends and your toddler announces he's hungry or thirsty, having eaten your cute picnic in the first ten minutes of the trip
• when it starts to rain and you forgot the rain cover
• when the wheel pops off the buggy after a three hour ordeal to the diy store to get a toilet seat, and when you go to take the toilet seat out it falls out of its wet cardboard packaging and scratches itself on the ground 
• your child gets pooped on by gulls
• your child gets sniffed or licked by passing dogs
• your child gets icy winds, sand, rain rushing into his delicate soft face, causing him to scream, and all the old ladies in the nearby bus shelter to laugh hysterically at you as you beat a quick retreat into the shelter and explain 'Och when mine were wee, I used to be known to walk backwards in this sort of weather!'
• breathing problems - this hasn't happened to my children, but other kids who seem predisposed to breathing problems seem to get more frequent flare-ups if pushed in the buggy. A theory is that buggies are at the level where all the smog and car emissions and dust, etc, are at their worst. One lady I met at a bus stop claimed that the reason modern kids have more outbreaks of asthma is because the old silvercross prams were much higher off the ground and less likely to expose the kids of bygone eras to low-lying gases and dust.
• cold - some children, particularly premature babies, are more susceptible to the cold. Even healthy children will have huge body temperature drops if you're out long enough - say on a three hour walk. You may be warm from pushing the buggy but the kids aren't! So wrap up and I mean socks, shoes, three layers, a hat, and something for their hands.
• kid's hands - always hard if the toddler refuses to wear gloves or mittens. I have been known to sew scratch mitts onto toddlers' shirts in the past. Or if the temperature isn't so bad, sometimes I allow them to keep their hands inside the cosy-toes.
• mud splashes - thinking of when waiting for a 26 bus and a different bus from the one we wanted, a 19 bus, wallowed into a mud-filled hole in the street and splashed my toddler and me from head to toe with greasy mud. It smelled like the worst city runoff and stained our clothing, buggy and cosy-toes permanently. 
• cyclists - generally a friendly bunch but when they cycle on the sidewalk which is illegal here, it's rather annoying not to mention downright dangerous with small children in tow
• storage - in a car, you can bring everything but the kitchen sink. Even in buggies with generous storage space, only 1/2 is really available since the remaining space is full of rain covers, coats, and other emergency items relating to the buggy. Some people carry around an extra buggy wheel for example. This means you are more frequently caught out without that one essential item (usually water, which is heavy, bulky and tends to leak - not my favorite thing to pack, or a third change of clothes or a bag to pick up the dog poo all over the children's playground or a towel. My kids always seem to choose the wet slides to go down or the biggest puddles to jump in, or the ponds at the parliament to fall in, so this is the one thing I always seem to be without!).
• kids who need a toilet when there is none around - and in freezing temperatures it's kinda hard to ask them to pee outside! With an audience.
• kids who announce they've wet their pants just after you leave whatever fun place you've been but when you still have 30 minutes before you're home - if you had a car, you could change them inside a semi-sheltered space, but a buggy is fairly exposed in terms of wind, rain and people staring at wee guy's privates. I once changed him in a shop behind some crates. When I got up I realize the security cameras were pointed straight at us. No one said anything though. Thank goodness for the British! A Parisian would have given me a stern lecture and the Germans would have marched me out to wherever they put homeschoolers.
• toddlers in a tantrum
• toddlers in a nosedive tantrum
• motorists - When I was a snotty 3-year-old I remember walking on the sidewalk nearest the road and Mrs. Walters, a family friend, saying, 'Don't do that, you might get run over.' to which I replied with 110% obnxiousness 'Cars don't drive on the sidewalk.' to which the wise Mrs. Walters replied, 'You never know where cars will go.' So then 25 years later, we got run into by a car when the kids were in the buggy and we were crossing the street! The kids were fine, the driver had been reversing and his mirror was broken and he paid for the buggy, so I don't think he's the worst person ever, but it was terrifying. I am officially sorry, Mrs. Walters, you were right. And Defensive Pedestrianizing was born. I now behave as if cars were an alien species bent on eradicating the human race.

I originally decided to raise kids without a car to lose my 'baby weight,' and for other reasons but I have since noted that anyone who raises more than one kid without a car for more than two years goes to phsyiotherapy. It destroys your body. Yes I burned off that baby fat but if you injure your back, neck, wrist, or leg you have no time to rest and recover. Even with a car, you might feel you have no reprieve and just keep re-injuring the body part. But without a car it's truly merciless.

If you want to push your kids around a city in a buggy for a year or two, I think you could get away with that but NOT if 

• you have pelvic girdle pain (particularly if you were planning to use a buggy board, which my friend's phsyiotherapist told her is the worst for your back)
• postpartum depression
• any serious recurring injury of back, neck, or limbs (having said that, I struggled with my left knee for years but it never bothered me while pushing the buggy until this week - so it just depends)

Walking with kids can be a great way to be healthy, save money and teach kids it's important to act on our beliefs like wanting to look after God's creation as good stewards. But there are definitely downsides.

The Pedestrian Life for Me

When I was just about to get married and move to Scotland I had the idea that living without a car would be great. I had driven since I got my license at sixteen and drove my eight younger siblings and all their friends places. Everyone seemed happy to entrust me with their kids' lives.

Having a friend die in a car accident made me nervous every time I got out the car keys and the responsibility of driving so many children weighed on me like eight white, 11-passenger conversions stacked on top of each other. 

When D and I married and moved to Scotland, I saw it as an opportunity to throw off driving for good! I was thrilled at the idea of no more hassle related to maintaining a car. Clearly it's a lot easier to do in Europe but I managed to talk it up so much that two of my brothers are now living car-free in Berkeley and Seattle. Other friends lived car-free in a non-urban setting in Florida, with the help of bicycles. It can be done in the States!

Six years ago my pro and cons list looked like this:

Pros

• Saves money - no forking out money for yet another car repair!
• No oil changes
• No running out of water (why do cars need water??)
• No tire changes
• No driving for hours
• No waiting in traffic
• In Europe there's good public transport so it should be easy to live without a car!

Cons

• No cons!

I was naive. Six years later, I have never driven in Scotland. On brief trips to America, I have borrowed one of my parents' cars. The pedestrian life is not exactly what I imagined.

Here is in insider's perspective on living without a car:

Pros

• free!
• snow, ice doesn't stop you
• healthy 
• nice people give you lifts - without which we could not have managed this
• saves money
• saves time - cleaning/maintaining car
• saves frantic parking maneuvers
• accessibility to shops - no bus money = no problem, just hop into the corner shop and buy a ridiculously overpriced snack and ask for change in the right coins
• accessibility to help - you can ask for directions more easily than someone in a car, you can also pick up random gloves off the ground and wear them as one desperate friends of mine with cold hands has been known to do!

Cons

• broken toe = skrewed
• broken leg = skrewed
• injury of ankle/knee/foot/any part of leg = screwed
• any other kind of injury = not good. I have hobbled three blocks to the bus stop two days after childbirth and it is not fun. Public transport only gets you so far.
• takes long time - I thought it was tedious waiting 45 minutes in traffic of cars but I have since walked more than hour to get places and that is a lot more tiring - especially if pregnant and breastfeeding
• rain - there's nothing so miserable as the rain starting fifteen minutes after you have left home and knowing you have another 30 minutes to go without a rain jacket, hat or gloves
• cold - till I moved to Scotland I thought I loved the cold - but I really just liked hopping out of the car and walking 10 minutes in a t-shirt to wherever I needed to go year round. I never quite realized the power of body temperature dropping, especially with the sun going behind clouds and wind picking up, over the better part of an hour's walk.
• heat - I can't complain too much about this in Scotland, but when it's hot there's no air conditioning outside of John Lewis and I have been pregnant in the summer before so 'nuff said.
• sun burn - my sister says I can burn under a reading lamp so yes I do burn in Scotland though I don't think most people have this problem. It usually happens in April so I can't really relate to 'Oh to be in England now that April's there....'
• wind burn - my face has never been so chapped or dry as in winters in Scotland! 
• health - if already thin and poorly, a long walk in the cold might not be the best thing. A long walk when already 'low' in health terms might push you over the edge to getting a cold or some other infection.
• distance - obviously there are upward limits to how far you can walk (like no more than 3 miles and back in my case. D can do 7 or 8 in a day with no complaints.)
• groceries - there's always that milk or one ingredient you've forgotten. And it's always cheapest at the shops more than a mile away. 
• food bill - Do you know how many extra calories you burn when you walk everywhere? The medieval man burned 2,000 more calories than we. I wouldn't say a pedestrian life burns that many. It depends how many hours you walk and how many stairs or hills are involved. If you walk 1 hour a day - which isn't much if you think about it - that's an extra 287 calories. Kiss goodbye the ideal of having a yogurt and piece of fruit for lunch everyday like your mom and granddad. It's something to take into account if you're trying to pinch the food budget.
• anything large - plant sale, skip-ful of rocks, abandoned furniture is not really an option - I don't even look at bulky free stuff! It's a recipe for being discontent.
• stinky smells - people in Edinburgh seem to feel entitled to wee on the street like in medieval times
• transparency - I knew a single mom in the States who used her trips in the car as her only opportunity to cry. One of the things I love and hate about Edinburgh is you can't do that without someone asking if you if you're okay. You can't talk things out with yourself either. Not without funny looks anyway.
• requires energy - sometimes let's face it, we don't feel  up to walking 3 miles for groceries. We just don't. So order groceries online you say? Yes I have found you can do all things if enough planning-ahead has happened but sometimes you're just inexplicably tired when you thought you'd be fine, and just didn't see a huge flop coming.
• you buy a LOT of shoes with fancy insoles, and they all wear out in 6 to 9 months.
• OR you do not buy shoes with fancy insoles and suffer ingrown toenails, cracked calluses, and frequent trips to the podiatrist where you see signs on the walls recommending shoes that fit at heel, arch and toes with fancy insoles - and you feel stupid. You feel you would happily have forked out the extra 25 dollars to avoid this level of feeling stupid. 

  

  our shoes after 6 months

• roundabouts which take forever to cross (one of the negatives to living in Europe; American crossings are much faster)
• no matter what kind of shoes we buy, three pairs wear out per year
• I can rarely buy more than £20 worth of groceries while at the shops because I can't carry more than that - lack of upper body strength is part of it but so is that more then £20 is a LOT of stuff if you are as cutthroat frugal as I am. The average UK family spends 80 pounds on food per week. That would be 4 trips to the grocery store for me if we spent that much and didn't get online shopping once to four times a month.
• long waits for lights
• mud splatters from passing cars - I seriously think some people are careless and stupid but others do it on purpose
• emissions - you may not drive or smoke but everyone around you does!
• slow people - nothing more trying than on a day when you're in a tearing rush that the universe conspires to put a gaggle of four slow-walking women spanning the entire pavement. I have almost been run over a few times when taking to the open road whilst trying to outmaneuver the slow-moving pack.
• angry people who punch random passersby (D saw this once! And in Edinburgh - not Glasgow!)
• pigeons poo on you - I am going to have to say you have not lived in Edinburgh if this has not happened to you or your favorite coat. I knew someone this happened to her baby. 

Despite the negatives, I am thankful we were able to live as pedestrians despite a growing family for 6 years because of the amounts we have been able to save.

In a time when people spend more on running a car than on a house, the running costs for a car in the UK are between 100 and 500 per month for most people though some claim the average is 557.

I calculate we have saved a minimum of 10,000 but probably more realistically 16,000-20,000 on car-related costs over the last 6 years. Which makes it all worth it.