The third day started early with J getting up at the crack of dawn to facilitate the hell out of a workshop. She remains convinced the only reason I got up was so I could kiss her goodbye and say “Have a good day at work, dear”. It wasn’t although I don’t have a better explanation other than I didn’t want to waste any time that could be spend exploring. That sounds good in theory but I then proceeded to waste an hour (if hearing the latest news on how Tito Ortiz came to be fighting Rashad Evans at August’s UFC 133 can be considered wasting time) slowly getting ready because I didn’t want to go down to five star luxury breakfast when it might be busy. Such things should be enjoyed at a leisurely pace and not be interrupted by mental calculations about how long you have to eat your scrambled eggs before you need to be in the toast queue if you want to have time to eat a bit of toast before you absolutely must get in line for the juice dispensers. Besides, there was a conference going on nearby which we were convinced was just a front for a sinister international cult and I didn’t want anyone trying to convert me while my blood sugar was low. J would be all right – she’s trained in the ways of the brain – but I am not. I buy new kinds of toothpaste because I read the boxes and think they must be better than the last half century’s toothpaste has been. I’m a naïve cynic and would be putty in the hands of a cultist before I’ve had a gallon of coffee and some jam.

Breakfast was fantastic. There were few of us about at that time and I was able to make free and easy with the entire buffet. I managed four courses – including some five star luxury Coco Pops which I might’ve Tweeted a photo of – before finally tapping out and going in search of the outside world. Toast, potato cakes, cereal, orange and apple juice, pastries, coffee, some more toast – I was putting the "all" into "all you can eat" and didn’t care who – out of the three fellow diners I saw – knew it.

Amidst the pretty waitresses – and some of them were very pretty – was one waiter and he was quite a character. While the girls got on with their fetching and carrying and only spoke occasionally and with Eastern European accents, the waiter was loud, jolly and Scotch to the core. He was cracking jokes, playing with dining children and generally being the closest you’ll get to the life and soul of the breakfast party. It was during my third course that I finally realised who he was. I’d read about the hotel on Trip Advisor and remembered one of the reviews was complimentary about everything except the inappropriate waiter (who they named) who kept making lewd remarks and spoilt the whole thing for them. The management of the hotel posted a reply which apologised for their interpretation of the waiter’s joviality and assured them he meant no ill. And now I was actually seeing this guy who had been slagged off on the internet in person. I felt like going over to him and saying “I’ve been slagged off on the internet by strangers too – isn’t that funny!” but I didn’t. It would’ve cost me eating time and that wouldn’t do. I had a schedule to maintain and it takes dedication to cram the best part of eight thousand calories into the breakfast window I’d allowed myself.

I felt like quite the old hand when I walked out – through the revolving door – and off down Princes Street. Our meanderings the night before had usefully pointed out the best way to the Mound was to turn right at the art gallery and be prepared for a hill. Or possibly a mound. I got to the Museum on the Mound at one minute past ten which was good as it didn’t open until 10 o’clock and people who linger outside closed banks tend to be viewed with suspicion. The Museum on the Mound – as you can guess from its name – is a museum celebrating the history of money. It’s based in the headquarters of the Bank of Scotland which I now know is a different thing to the Royal Bank of Scotland. Though until I just looked it up on Wikipedia I didn't really know who owned what or was owned by whom. Bank of Scotland – like the Royal version and the Clydesdale Bank – can print its own bank notes which I think is brilliant. You never see Scottish money in England but up there you never know what you’re going to get when you hand a note over and expect some change. With four sets of currency in circulation it is quite exciting, though when I returned to England I wasn’t quite brave enough to use Scotch money in a shop and instead weaselled out and used it in a self-service checkout.

The Museum on the Mound both charts the rise of money (and the whole idea of paper money) and tells the history of the Mound itself. It is not a natural feature and was constructed out of the rubble and debris that resulted from the building of the New Town. It was also a rubbish dump for people living in the Old Town and excavations on the Mound have found oyster shells amongst other compacted refuse.

Amongst the exhibits in the museum is a million pounds in cash. An actual million quid in actual notes. True, they have all been marked to say they’re spoilt and no longer legal tender but it’s still not something you see every day. They also have a replica of a million pound note of the sort that’s only used internally by the Bank of England. More fun is the game where you start with a wooden model of the old version of the building you’re standing in and have to overlay rubber blocks to turn it into the new version of the building you’re standing in. Someone – I forget who – spent a happy five minutes getting it right because it was early and no one else was around yet. I tell a lie – there was one man but he was literally walking really quickly, stopping, taking a photo, rushing off to the next thing, taking a photo, rushing off and so on. I think he must only have had ten minutes to do the whole thing and wanted to enjoy it later, at his leisure. Though that doesn’t explain why he came back round a few minutes later and did exactly the same thing. Maybe he was doing laps and needed the timings on the photos to gauge whether he was getting faster at it.

The history of coins and notes gave me a chance to see examples from my youth as well as the preceding few centuries. It’s amazing how much bigger the old coins of the 70s and 80s were compared with the diddy tokens we push into vending machines today. There is a beauty about cash – not in a greedy, wanting to roll naked in it and laugh at the poor sort of way – and I understand why people collect coins and bank notes. Well, no I don’t because most of them collect them purely as investments rather than as objects of actual and historical beauty but it still makes more sense than stamps. I’d love to have an iPad app (heck, I’d love to have an iPad) which let you see all the currency of the world in real size and throughout the ages. Not to mention telling you what each note would be worth today.

The museum then turns to more recent developments in banking and the marketing of banking services to ordinary families. The advertising has a certain charm about it and speaks for an age of modest optimism. The happy nuclear family in their little mortgaged home was an emblem for a society emerging from the horrors of war and austerity and beginning to plant roots it hoped wouldn’t be swept away with yet another swathe of bombs and madness. In those days there was a real bond of trust between the bank or building society and its customers. Once you joined you were with them for life. The little man would call at your door every week and you’d give him your shilling (not a euphemism although I’ve heard stories). If you were out and he didn’t get his shilling he’d simply come back next week for two shillings. If you were out the next week too he’d smash down your door and steal your mangle. They were simpler, happier times.

Also simpler and happier was the bank’s relationship with its staff. In the olden days you had a job for life – being killed in the trenches aside – as long as you turned up 51 weeks of the year, wore a stiff collar, called your betters Sir and showed the right spirit by joining the bank’s shooting club. I’m being unfair – the display case about how happy the staff were shows a range of activities from theatrical clubs to sports teams to posh dining and lots of inter-class dancing. It may seem forced and quaint but it’s more than you get in the industry these days. The collars may be softer and it may all be “call me Barry” but that’s come at the cost of no security and no comradeship any longer. After all, it’s hard to dance with someone if you’re in Edinburgh with a redundancy letter in your pocket and they are in Bangalore with a false name and a crib sheet about last week’s soap opera water cooler chat.

The Museum took about an hour and was well worth the trip up the Mound. I still had enough morning left to head off down the Royal Mile and find the National Museum of Scotland even though I knew it was only half open. Or half closed if you prefer, though no one in their right mind would say it was only half closed.

I’d been wondering why there wasn’t a Scottish science museum in Edinburgh given the city’s fine history in the provable arts. The answer is that a lot of it is covered in the achingly modern National Museum which reeks and groans with big machines. Lovely. It’s in the process of being renovated (and will have been completed by the time you read this) and the new Museum sounds like it will be well worth revisiting in the future.

My main gripe about it is that it is one of those facilities where the stairs don’t go where you expect them to. Stairs are simple – or so you would’ve thought – and go up until they stop. Six floors, one stair case, six doors. Easy. Not here – every staircase has a list of floors it visits on it and some of them are damned tricky to get to. I’d like to think there was a sound architectural reason for this but it smacks of a cunning ploy to get people to wander round as much as poss even if they are only looking for the second floor having found themselves inexplicably on the fifth.

Because the museum has a fairly broad brief – being about Scotland seems to cover it – there were large chunks I felt a bit guilty about rushing through or not even visiting at all. Even the bits I did spend some time over didn’t quite grip me because they were random bits of curiosity rather than a developing or demonstrative narrative. Oh look – a carriage. Nice carriage. Oh look – a bronze age sword. Nice sword. Oh look – a big machine. Nice big machine. Oh look – some wacky tartan. Nice wacky tartan.

I think the best and worst bit of the trip both happened when I decided to take the lift to the roof terrace. I got in with a group of about 6 old people. One of them went to press the button for the roof terrace and we all saw the sign saying the roof terrace was closed. Disappointment. The old people then made classic sit com disappointed noises for a full ten seconds. Tuts, groans, muttering, mild wailing – everything except the actual words of dialogue that would’ve meant paying them an extra couple of quid because they no longer counted as extras. I didn’t think people made those noises in real life. I was amused enough not to be bothered about missing out on the roof terrace. Besides, we had a date with the Edinburgh skyline in a couple of hours.

I can’t say I did the museum justice in my brief hour long inspection. It’s the sort of place you could spend half a day – probably a full day now it has 18 new galleries – but I had a souvenir shop to visit and not very long in which to visit it. Having failed to bag an Edinburgh Hard Rock Café t-shirt I wanted the next best thing – the only tasteful t-shirt from Edinburgh castle. I didn’t want anything that promoted Scotchness or any of that plastic patriotism because I genuinely don’t like that sort of thing. It has nothing to do with Scotland – I’d no sooner wear a St George’s flag t-shirt with an I HEART ENGLAND on it – but it did limit my choice in the endless merchandise shops that litter Princes Street and the Royal M. Luckily there was a nice Castle t-shirt that I’d seen the day before and I was having one. So, for the third day in a row, I walked up to the Castle and by now felt quite at home there. £10.95 later I was back down and heading for the Hub – a church that’s been converted into a trendy restaurant. Or as trendy a restaurant as I’m likely to get into.

J’s workshop had gone well – not that I had any doubts about it – and she was buoyant after a morning well spent. She hadn’t seen a million pounds though so I won in the superficial tourist stakes. She’d merely informed, educated and entertained a sold out conference room as Lord Reith would’ve wanted. We actually discussed one or two of the themes over lunch and I sort of kept up. Must’ve been the goodness in my slightly watery soup of the day. It was called “soup de jour” which must be French for tomato and basil.

Our trip for the afternoon was to Camera Obscura which claims to be Edinburgh’s oldest purpose built tourist attraction. I’d looked at the website several times, read up on it at Wikipedia and done various other superficial internet research (basically I did an undergraduate degree in Camera Obscura) but still had very little idea what it actually was. We soon discovered it is absolutely brilliant.

Next time - do not trust your eyes