Well after spending the morning at the Indian Consulate General Office submitting my visa application for my trip to India in December (they told me it will take 5 weeks to process the application so cross fingers and toes it doesn't take too much longer than that. At least I could submit my application in person and not have to send it my post which I thought I might have to do) I decided to head out of the city and spend a bit of time in the countryside of the Scottish Borders. My aim was to get to Lauder-about an hour's bus drive south. It is lovely countryside-lush green rolling paddocks with lots of hay bales at the moment, sheep grazing and a really neat wind farm not far out of Lauder. Not a large farm by any standards-about 30 turbines but you could get a really good view of them as the road cut through the middle. They were working well today with quite a stiff breeze! I got to Lauder early afternoon and had about 2 hours to look around before the last bus of the day returned to Edinburgh. Lauder is a small village (well by UK standards) and there are some sheep grazing on the outskirts of town but that is about where the similarities end with Lauder in Central Otago. I don't know whether Lauder in NZ was named after the Lauder in the Scottish Borders but I wouldn't be surprised as the local council name was Ettrick and Roxburgh was also mentioned-all names that I recognise and wel known places in Central Otago! I would guess Lauder would be about the same size as Roxburgh-maybe a little bit smaller but certainly much bigger than my beloved Lauder in NZ! I took a couple of pictures of the main street which I'll try and get on the website tonight. I then visited Thirlestane Castle-about 10 minutes walk from the village. very impressive place with extensive grounds as well. The plaster work was incredible. And the lovely thing about it was there were only a handful of other people looking through it at the same time as me. I got on the bus back to Edinburgh just before some heavy rain showers-good timing! I've spent the last couple of hours catching up with a friend-Charlie who I worked with in the Climate Change Office earlier this year. It was lovely seeing a familar face. I better sign off and get myself organised for tomorrow-the start of my tour of the Highlands. Can't wait... love to you all, Sonia