Hooray! Lockdown has eased, beer gardens are open and we finally can enjoy dinner at one of our favourite restaurants in Edinburgh.
Of course there's one issue - with everyone else thinking exactly the same it's been far from easy to get a booking.
It can be a really thankless task phoning around every single restaurant you can think of or checking their online booking system only to be crushed when they don't have anything available.
After doing this a few times over, it's easy to just think 'THAT'S ENOUGH WE'RE HAVING A TAKEAWAY', but fear not, as there are a few hacks on how to get yourself out of the house and into your favourite venue's dining room.
First things first, don't sit and click through every single website on the off-chance that they might have something available.
Many Edinburgh restaurants and bars (in fact, pretty much every eatery in the UK) will use an online booking system.
By visiting the booking system's direct website you can view every single restaurant in Edinburgh that use it and book a table directly from there.
Simply click through onto a booking site, type in your availability and how many you're looking to book for and the website will list all Edinburgh restaurants that use its system for bookings with spaces at that time for your party of people.
Websites you should visit include OpenTable, ResDiary and Quandoo.
Here's how we used ResDiary to get a last minute booking for tonight (Tuesday 27 April) just a few hours before we intended to head out.
First, we went through onto ResDiary's main website and entered our requirements - 2 people at 6pm in Edinburgh, although you can be more specific in which area of the capital you choose.
After clicking 'search' it couldn't be easier, simply scroll through all of the restaurants that have availability and get booking your table - we found spaces at The Kitchin, Howies, La Favorita, TukTuk and The Fishmarket.
Using the same system we also found spaces for outdoors drinking at Lost in Leith and over on OpenTable we found spaces at the House of God's new champagne garden too, so it pays to check one or two of the booking sites.
From yesterday April 26, bars in Scotland are able to serve alcohol and food outdoors until 10pm, while indoor hospitality can open without the sale of alcohol until 8pm as part of a national easing of lockdown rules.
