It was goodbye to both Geoff and Mawfa today as we headed up north while Mawfa headed back to Australia.

We passed the home of Rugby on the way.

First stop was Birmingham to visit Mamfa’s old boss, Martin Stockley, from his London working days in 2001-2002. Martin is project managing and building his own 11m x 11m 4-storey house in inner Birmingham which is a very big undertaking with it also being a bit experimental to make it a very sustainable house (shredded timber pallet blocks with internal insulation for the walls, passive cooling, solar panels and batteries, stormwater collection etc).

We had some short sightseeing on the walk from the station to Martin’s.

It was then a 4.5hr train to Edinburgh which had some great scenery through the Lake District and the Pennines.

Arriving late into Edinburgh we did a walk along the Royal Mile and found out why the student bedroom accommodation we are staying in is so expensive. The Fringe Festival, the International Arts Festival, Royal Military Tattoo and the Women’s British Open golf in St Andrews are all on at the same time! Crazy scheduling.

This day in sporting history (22 August)

1851 100 Guineas Cup is raced around Isle of Wight; US schooner ‘America’ beats British cutter ‘Aurora’ by 24 minutes; first competition for the America’s Cup yachting trophy

2008 Steven Hooker wins the men’s pole vault with 5.96m at the Beijing Olympics; Australia’s first gold medal in men’s athletics since 1968