Am back in the office catching up after a few days away in Scotland. For those of you that wish to know how I fared in the final one of my recent series of big city marathons, the please visit my Hypnosis For Running Edinburgh Marathon Race Report here.

Today is one of those blog entries where I reflect and I’ll be back blazing the trail for all things hypnosis, self-hypnosis and hypnotherapy here very soon.

I loved Edinburgh and it’s people, just magnificent. The flight from Southampton is short and easy and as you land you get some fabulous views of the Forth Bridge and the city. We stayed at the very lovely Sheraton hotel, which was very different to the Sheraton in Gambia that we stayed in at New Year – the staff were excellent, the services top drawer and we wished we could have stayed longer.


The square directly outside the hotel has a big public screen where the Eurovision song contest was displayed on Saturday night, a few Eurovision enthusiasts gathered and sat and watched it. I opted to stay in our room, lie on our massive bed with room service pasta (marathon preparation) and those crazy elederly Russian women singing on the TV.

After the marathon was run on Sunday, we went out for a celebratory meal, here is my beautiful wife as we waited for the taxi in the lobby (I know, I am a very lucky man):


We went to the Dome Restaurant, with it’s very cool, colourful and high ceiling:


The food was marvellous, I had to have the haggis for starter and the steak was the best I have had in a long time… And it had a very cool bar serving pre-dinner cocktails before you got into the restaurant:


The bar was actually very similar in looks and style to the famous Robbie Burns monument in the park area near our hotel:


We walked back to enjoy some of the City’s stunning evening views:


The next day, we met up with my friend and fellow hypnosis and hypnotherapy enthusiast George Watson (and his lovely other half Gina), we went for a walk in the glorious sunshine in the gardens at the foot of the castle. Here’s George and I:

We had lunch at the Witchery near the Castle, where I scoffed my face with oysters, lobster and enough shellfish to satisfy the heartiest appetite, before we walked it all off along the Royal Mile back into town and could not resist the aroma of the most wonderful fudge shop – I could have stayed all day because of the smell, and the agony of choice:


We enjoyed the chocolate swirly pecan fudge the most, but the traditional vanilla flavoured fudge was exquisite… I justified eating some of this with the fact that I had run a marathon the day before! I think it warrants another picture:


I could not resist blending in as a Scottish native with some traditional gear too 😉


We flew back last night. So yes indeed, a great time had, we loved our brief sojourn to Edinburgh and am now getting back into the swing of things… Who knows, I may even write about hypnosis or hypnotherapy before the week is through!