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.
You can follow coffeemuffins on twitter or subscribe to my feed to keep track of all the fun ;)
Have any good recipes for me to try? Please drop me a comment.






Looking for a recipe for coffee muffins?
Hey Lauren, good to see you back! Where have you been?
I always take lunch into work (usually eat at desk then go wander around outside) and make a conscious effort not to just do a boring sandwich.
I’ve a few fruity salads here http://hungryjenny.blogspot.com/2011/02/4-ways-to-get-fruity-with-salad.html that you might like to try for a packed lunch.
I also did a post on work lunch ideas too – it’s pretty old but you might find some ideas to play with there also :) http://hungryjenny.blogspot.com/2009/04/5-easy-lunch-ideas-for-work.html
Hungry Jenny x
Hungry Jenny … Almost-like-Mum’s Asian Steamed Salmon
Hi Jenny, I’ve not been up to much to be honest – just taking a break. Loving getting back into it though :)
Thanks for the suggestions, your fruit salads look great – especially the peach one! I’ve got a fruity salad of my own coming up soon too.
Laurenx
Hello, found you again (changed from a p.c. to a laptop and left favourites behind!). Funnily enough I had googled “cranachan” as I’d made some (well not quite the real thing but my version which I will post about soon) when I came across your lovely post on the ice cream version. Didn’t realize you lived in Edinburgh – my hometown too, except I live in New Zealand now! Laughed at your comments on Festival tourists! I was once asked by an American “is that real?” as he nodded towards the Castle! I’m sure most locals avoid the busy spots at Festival time.
Lesley … etcetera…#3