Have you ever been to Edinburgh? During the festival? Or for that matter any major city in tourist season?
As the weather gets warmer the hordes descend on Edinburgh. They walk slowly looking at the scenery (or reading a map), they stop to take photos directly in front of you and there are thousands of them between you and where you need to go.
I work in the centre of town, so every morning, lunchtime and evening I have to storm past tourists, weaving constantly to and fro, occasionally sighing loudly.
Don’t get me wrong I love travelling and being one of those people, I love exploring new cities – camera in hand. I understand it’s hypocritical and I have no doubt in your city I would be one of _those_ people to you. However I don’t think my stress levels can cope with that number of tourists every day, so I have made a decision. I won’t go out at lunch time.
I’ll take my lunch to work with me, read a book, go up to the roof garden, talk to colleagues. I won’t brave the tourist strip until the festival is done and dusted. Which means the entirety of August making packed lunches.
It also means being super organised – which is not one of my strongest points. Leftovers will make it easier, but I don’t want to spend the entire month eating tiny portions of day old stirfries.
Thankfully August is a great month for variety in fruit and vegetables, so there will be lots of salads and I have been back trawling the food blogs for picnic recipes and food that will travel well. I am planning to write a whole series of posts on salad recipes and other packed lunch treats throughout the month of August.
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Have any good recipes for me to try? Please drop me a comment.
