I did loads of research before setting off for Edinburgh about restaurants and food but little about what else to do while we were there so, first thing this morning, we set off from the hotel and after a quick croissant and coffee in a coffee bar by the hotel, we walked along Princes Street looking for a bookshop to buy a guide.

Guide book procured, we settled down for another coffee (it’s a tough life) to decide on a plan for the day. Here is DM in his new (old) shirt studying the guide and looking quite dashing in his specs.

The Castle, Greyfriars Bobby and a mooch around the streets, curtailed only by a heavy downpour of rain all followed then after a change of clothes (others wet through) and a quick snooze back at the hotel we set off for today’s food adventure.

The place I’d selected for tonight’s dinner was a restaurant claiming to be the only restaurant in Britain to cook its pizzas in a traditional wood-fired oven. I now know that their claim isn’t true (any more?) because I have found on Google at least three other restaurants in Britain with them but given that close to the top of my list of things to do at home is to build a wood-fired oven in the garden, I was intrigued and thrilled to be able to go and see a real-live one in action.

It’s slightly out of town so we again sample the bus system and a walk around the streets of Leith. When we arrived at La Favorita, the first thing we saw when we walked through the door was two ovens glowing with burning wood and pizzas being shoved into them on a paddle. Wow.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say and this experience does nothing to reduce my desire for a wood-fired oven here – in fact it fuels it and fans it and generally makes me even more determined to go ahead with my planned oven.

It is a really nice experience to be able to sit around and simply do what we feel like. It’s a rare treat in my world.