I just came back to Bath after a short winter holiday in Edinburgh with my family. Yes, it was great. I enjoyed the resources offered by the larger city.

There was a huge party on the night of the 31st. We missed most of it, but we wondered around town right after midnight, amidst very drunk and very jolly people who kept wishing us a happy new year. I made a Chinese girl laugh a lot by telling her “gong hei fa choi.” Initially I thought that she laughed a lot because of the shock of a white man in Edinburgh wishing her a happy new year in Cantonese. But it might also have been because the Chinese new year is in February.

And here are a couple of poems that I hastily composed on the Magnetic Poetry display stand of a discount book shop on a central Edinburgh street. I managed to make the top one a proper haiku in terms of syllables, but at the expense of coherence. I like the second one much better. I tried to increase the syllables, but thought it was elegant in its brevity. In any case, I hope it might make some Edinburgh shopper smirk.