VIII. Easter Road My stomping ground is Easter Road, a place of withered leaves, stubbed butts, strewn rubbish, and the same squat bulldog lamp post tethered while his master buys a macaroni pie. A bookie’s, two booze shops, three options for tattoos, and a bakery with sourdough for £6 – can’t see that lasting, not … Continue reading Easter Road, Abbeymount, Meadowbank
VI. Royal Terrace Some habits punctuate my days, like sunset walks to Calton Hill with robin, rat and wren. I’ve met them all, housed happily in hawthorn hedge, that neat-clipped edge to Royal Terrace with its high and haughty ‘cannot-help-it’ tinge. Enough to say, I saw a couple dancing there beneath a crystal chandelier. A … Continue reading Royal Terrace, Calton Hill
III. Bonaly The wind is up on my drive to Bonaly past cherry tree trunk soldiers lining Redford Barracks. Fallen leaves St Vitus’ dance in the gutter. At Colinton, I turn towards the hills and take a narrow, pitted road down bumps and bracken-broken verges. Slower now, a herd of alpacas graze the Pentlands’ sheltered … Continue reading Bonaly, Capelaw Hill, Willowbrae
This time two years ago, September 2020, we were deep in the throes of the Covid pandemic, mired in lockdowns and uncertainty. A vaccine was on its way, that much we knew, but we didn’t know when it would be administered, if it would work, or how much of a winter of isolation lay ahead. … Continue reading Once Upon a Time in Edinburgh
Five years I’ve lived here, and this is my first visit to the Mansfield Traquair Centre. The former Catholic Apostolic Church closed its doors to a dwindling congregation when the last priest died in 1958. After that, the building had other short-lived reinventions, but its decrepitude had begun. A slow decay of fading and peeling, … Continue reading Mrs. Traquair
I had driven to the north-west shore of Edinburgh, still within the city boundary. The tide timetable pinned to a board told us we had a four-hour window to walk out, around, and back from the tidal island lying in the Forth. When I first moved here, I met a man who told me that … Continue reading Cramond Island
I have become accustomed to the online life; even those things I thought I would hate to attend virtually – like an online book festival – it turns out I rather like. Last month, I joined some talks by writers organised by Liverpool’s Writing on the Wall annual festival. One speaker was Ben Okri. There … Continue reading Doubt
The weather, the grass, and emerging from lockdown.
By the entrance to Edinburgh’s Modern Art Gallery, you will find the first of a series of six Anthony Gormley cast iron sculptures; those well-known life-size male figures that stand straight as soldiers, arms by their side. The peculiar thing about this particular one, however, is that it is buried to its chest, just above … Continue reading What Does It All Mean?
Edinburgh is very pretty this morning now with thick snow everywhere, it makes the day seem extra bright. My last post was long, so here's a short one: two poems I've written about snow. Snow, by Eimear Bush Softer than the moon, Dimmer than a torch, Last night it lit my room, I wakened to … Continue reading Thick Snow Everywhere
My Edinburgh Press 