...The old man sitting on a bench in the museum gardens at 9 o'clock on nice mornings, cuddling the filthy pigeons who confidingly hop up on his lap.
... the dozens of people, locals and tourists, lined up on the bridges to stare at the swollen, flooded river and assure each other over and over that yes, yes it was very high indeed.
... the exquisitely dressed business man who waited patiently outside the bank in the early morning mist and calmly but thoroughly excavated his left nostril.
... the Native American dancers setting up in Parliament street wearing full headdresses, beaded tunics and z-coil shoes while they hung up rows and rows of dream-catchers to entice the tourists
... the enormously outsized man glimpsed through the gym window every evening who last night was wearing a startlingly appropriate carnival-strong-man striped vest
... the Minster tower appearing and disappearing in the evening fog while underneath four slightly self-conscious teens pretended the chilly stone steps were a comfortable place to drink their cheap 2-litre cider.
The Roman wall outside the library seen through the wobbly, cracked glass in the window and then, sailing into view against it, two solemn men in bright yellow safety vests, shackled into their cherry-picker and clutching clipboards to justify themselves.
... the blue emergency lights broken and flashed back by the dozens of small panes in the windows of the church up the street.
... the Dickensian, apple-cheeked woman who, as I was walking past, suddenly produced an enormous gob of spit that splatted inches from my shoe and who then apologized sweetly, explaining that, 'I always have ta do that when I say his name luv, it's instinct'.
Just add bad bagpipers and the sweet sweet smell of haggis, neeps and tatties and you're in Edinburgh!
Posted by: Lally | 10/27/2012 at 11:45 PM