Outside Scotmid a young girl with matted hair sits on a tartan blanket. ‘Any spare change, please.’ A man carries a baby, pressed like a pillow into his belly. He stops at Bayne’s window to point out the green spider decorations and the buns shaped as pumpkins, iced with orange fondant. The baby is too … Continue reading The Street Where I Live
At first, I thought it was nighttime roadworks. Or an ambulance pulled in by the side of the street, its lights flashing. Largely, I’d pushed the flickering to the back of my mind, dismissing it as some sort of strobe lighting outside. That was until I heard the BOOM! Then I knew it was the … Continue reading A Terrible Beauty
Oh, Edinburgh! Dearest city mother with too many children; lady of grace with so much to do; cherished nursemaid laden with contracts of responsibility. Yet you tend to it uncomplaining. You raise your progeny consistently, watchful over everyone who lives here and passes through as you sleep lightly, keeping one eye half open. I know … Continue reading Edinburgh Resting
Slow travel: there’s a lot to be said for it, taking one’s time to get from there to here so that your head and your heart can keep pace with your body; so that the emotional you and the physical you arrive as one to your destination. My first stop is on the other side … Continue reading Never Been Gone
Come on, seriously? July? Tomorrow? How did that happen? I know we all remark upon it constantly: how quickly the time goes, that it flies, disappears, but this year it really slipperdy-jippeted as the calendar dates danced away from me. I love a calendar. I love the ritual turning of twelve pages and plotting what … Continue reading Time and Tide
I can only let go by degrees. I can only accept change slowly. I think that is normal. There might be some superhumans who can adapt more quickly, but I imagine many of us are built in the same way; that we process change piece by piece, one thing at a time. For me, it … Continue reading Maybe Next Year
The good thing about walking alone is that you have time to stop and see and take note. The bad thing is there is no one to enjoy it with. I write this for you, and I walk with you. Come with me. I’m cutting up the side of London Road Gardens. Cow parsley sways … Continue reading Come With Me
On the days when the batteries in my legs have run low, or when I know it is going to be a particularly beautiful evening, I save my daily walk until late in the day and venture out for a shorter stroll up Calton Hill. It is a still night. Cawing seagulls, a waspish buzz … Continue reading For We Ha’e Faith
New Year’s Resolution: adopt more causes. The problem is, there is a proliferation of them. A cursory search for something worthwhile threw up too many, causing me to furrow my brow, so I’ve decided to plough my own furrow and create my own list of (perhaps light-hearted) causes. Cause Number One: Campaign to save spurned … Continue reading Rebel With a Cause
Dalkeith Country Park is located at the south east edge of Edinburgh. I went there yesterday to walk in an ancient oak wood, hunkered down between the meeting of the North and South Esk Rivers. Weather and rain had undone the wood; it was resting, bare, and the mud underfoot was glorious. Even suitably booted, … Continue reading Weather and Rain Have Undone It Again
