Arriving in Edinburgh we had a piece of luck. The bus passed our hotel and stopped just around the corner on Princes Street. So we were able to get off, book in, and before we knew it we were in the city. Edinburgh is the centre for National Inventory pubs - there are ten  and we have five days to find them. We quickly  came across Rose Street (Courtenay Place) and first up was the Abbotsford, a magnificent pub with a massive carved centre bar. It was very busy, will get busier, some lads from Middlesborough were on the town drinking Swedish cider. I got confused by the system of pouring beers in Scotland the pub had four cask ales but not on handpump they have a tap system. Which meant my Caledonian 70/- from yesterday might also have been a cask ale. Here I hade an Old Mortality 80/- from Stratheven Ales a quite good Sots Ale We then made for the Oxford Bar, also on the National Inventory. Some of you may know the name of this pub from Ian Rankin’s Rebus crime novels. But what many of you may not know is it actually exists and is a real bar and Rankin does drink in there regularly. The bar itself is tiny, with a dozen people in it is packed. And the back room (where all the plotting went on) would only hold about 30. We are surprised that the pub has not been given more publicity and not become a tourist magnet. But it is not that easy to find. It is a basic, scruffy, back street workingman’s boozer that is not particularly encouraging of strangers. Deuchars IPA is almost compulsory here - and I will be back. Finally we went back to Rose Street to the Kenilworth, another pub named after a Scott novel, for a meal. One of the great advantages of the no-smoking policy in pubs is that they all been redecorated so that the great colours in the ceilings and walls can be shown to best advantage. This pub was last altered in 1903, when a second storey was removed and you can now see the magnificent glass work and the brilliantly tiled walls. Here I had a Harvieston Bitter and Twisted Blonde which in my opinion was better than the English Blonde’s I have tasted because it was more like a bitter and did not have the sweet, cloying fruit   they have. Finally another Deuchars but not as good as in the Oxford Bar - tomorrow Kirkcaldy.  We went to Kirkcaldy because a grandmother left there for Australia over 100 years ago.   The Harbour Bar is at 471 High Street, but didn’t know that High Street started  at No. 1. So after half an hour’s walking we found it. It was worthwhile,  Nick Bromfield has been running this pub for 18 years and as had it on the market fror three with no takers. It is the brewery tap for Fyfe Brewery, the first brewery in the Kingdom for 70 years. An interesting feature of the pub is the tiny jug bar at the front where the miners wives used to fill the jugs as the shift was ending. I chatted to him for more than an hour while he served up top quality beers. Including Hornbeam Top Hop Best Bitter 4.2 (new brewery) and Castle Rock Harvest Pale 3.8. both on top class on Nick’s recommendation.  The pub is called the Harbour Bar and used to have a harbour view until about five years ago when about 60 hideous flats were built between the bar and the harbour. It is a story we have heard before - two developers have gone bust, they didn’t bother with formal planning permission when they started. It sounds a bit like our leaking buildings scandal, Nick reckons they will fall down in a couple of years because of the shoddy materials used. He saw six put up in one day. They have now been taken over by the welfare authorities who are using them to dump various social misfits such as drug addicts, etc.  Back in Edinburgh we made for Broughton Street where there are two National Inventory pubs. The first was HP Mathers, where they were showing the Scottish and English Cup Finals simultaneously. Quite confusing, as both matches had a team playing in blue. We just had soup here no beer. The second, just down the road, was the Barony Bar which was much quieter. They both had typical splendid interiors. Broughton Street does not have the same activity as Rose Street. Earlier we had noticed a restaurant just off Princes St called Bella Italia. There is a restaurant of the same name in Wellington.  We decided to go there for dinner - a typical Italian restaurant, friendly, busy and tasty food -  a change from pub food.  Sunday most of Edinburgh does n’t open until about 12.30. We walked around the Princes Street area looking for the Café Royal, another inventory pub, which we eventually found down a narrow alley covered in scaffolding. We thought to have lunch there, but it was quite full and the only seating available was tall stools, so we gave it a miss and went on to the Barony - not yet open, then to Mathers - didn’t have a Sunday roast. But they did have Stewart’s Brewing Edinburgh Gold 4.8 not an ESB but a quite good Scotch 80/-  so finally to the Kenilworth (Deuchars)  which did. After an afternoon rest I   went off to the Oxford Bar and watched England beat Australia in the 20 20, about a dozen Scotsmen (in between smoking breaks)  were cheering on England (sort of) but pretending no to. They did say if the bloody English talk about 66 again they will turn the TV off.  Not much of a beer range but the best Deuchars in the city. They were not impressed by the Australians.  For an evening meal we discovered the Grosvenor pub, just over the road from our hotel, which although it doesn’t appear in the GBG had good food.  They were having a craft beer month and this week it was Young’s and the bitter was very good..  After an indifferent breakfast in the hotel next door we moved a mile or so to the first hotel on our tour which is definitely a couple of steps upmarket from where we have been staying. Natwest does not have any branches north of Aberdeen. We called in to the Café Royal, which lives up to its name. It is very sumptuous and well worth visiting.  We  broke the bank with a Nobilo’s Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The young man in charge on the day was very impressed that we had been to Lancaster (where he came from), and we knew the  Sun Inn and Lancaster brewery. The men’s toilets in this pub are in the same class as the Philharmonic in Liverpool - a place everyone should visit once in their life. Misty Law from Kelburn Brewery in Renfrewshire was a good start for the day - typical Scottish Ale with slightly more hops than usual. The Blue Blazer is close to our new hotel so I tried I tried An Tellach Ale yet another Scottish Ale this time from  Ross not quite up0 to Misty Law. Quite a few people had not yet arrived for the tour, which looks even more geriatric than the last one. It is the Americans who have been having trouble getting here. But Larry and Sharon arrived, and we went and had dinner in Bennet’s Bar, which is close to the castle. This is not as sumptuous as the other  National Inventory pubs on the other side of Edinburgh, but it does have some great stained glass and carved woodwork.  I also must confess to having another McEwan’s 70/- which was quite flavoursome and nothing like a sweet New Zealand draught.   Following the tour of the Castle we walked the length of the Royal Mile (one and a half) as far as Holyrood which was closed. The new Scottish Parliament is one of the strangest modern buildings we have seen, crammed on a very small site, it is rather like a large version of those strange flats you see in Hataitai when you turn out of the tunnel. Just a jumble of very oddly shaped buildings, no grass, no gardens, no trees. It was meant to cost £44M, but finished up costing £440m, eight years later, 440 million pounds, and then the cell phones wouldn’t work in the building. After lunch in the Grassmarket we met up with Sharon and Larry went to the Museum of Scotland But it was off to visit the pubs starting at the Café Royal, for a Kelburn Dark Moor a Scotch Ale that could also be a stout calling in at the Kenilworth and the Abbotsford just to show them the decorations, finally finishing at the Oxford Bar.  They might only have Deuchars on, but it is the best Deuchars in Scotland. There were tourists in this time, only eight, but still tourists looking for Rebus. A group sat next to us and were saying “is this the place”, and I was able to inform them that it certainly was and it was at that table at the end of the room where Rebus and Siobahn did much of their plotting. The bloke I was talking to looked very much like Ray Winston, and in fact could have been. The evening finished with an Italian in the Grassmarket. Sent from the George and Abotsford in Melrose drinking Tynside Brown 4.7.  Your UK correspondent