facttime

I was last in New York in February 2020 , a work trip that also took me to Seattle for a conference. It was a strange time to be there, as COVID cases began to climb, and no one really knew how to act as we didn't know what was to come. I did what I usually did and tried to go to as many of my favourite NYC places as possible, saving the rest for the trip with my parents I had booked in for May 2020. Of course, it turned out that it was my last foreign trip for 18 months, and the two-year gap until my return earlier this month was my longest absence from my favourite city in more than 15 years. COVID cases are starting to rise again as the BA.5 variant spreads, but I was glad to be able to make it to New York and back for a much-needed holiday with my parents. We had to take a supervised lateral flow test to get into the US but that rule was axed a couple of days after we arrived. Rates of mask-wearing, meanwhile, were a lot higher than in London — public transport and Broadway the...

Earlier this month, I spent four days in Edinburgh with my parents, and although we only scratched the surface, we had a grand time and packed a lot in. We even had reasonable weather in that it didn't rain much and was occasionally sunny. A return was long overdue since my last visit on a rainy family road trip through Scotland, almost three decades ago. All I remember from the trip is the  Scottish National Gallery , Greyfriars Kirkyard and an overexuberant walking tour guide shouting, "Gardyloo!" I had a lot of ground to make up!  THINGS TO DO Old Town .  Perched on an ancient hunk of volcanic rock, the site of  Edinburgh Castle  has origins dating back to the Iron Age and was the home of kings and queens for many hundreds of years. It's worth allowing a couple of hours to explore the castle as there's a lot to see, from the Stone of Destiny (used in coronation ceremonies) and the grand Great Hall, to the cannon Mons Meg and the National War Museum. Ther...