Betwixt Lakeland & Edinburgh
One of the simpler joys of today has been the sight and sound of a mother gathering her family and friends for a photo in Princes Street Gardens. ‘Smile, everyone,’ she called, ‘we’re on our holidays.’ And around a dozen voices returned ‘Hoorraaaaayy!’
click / tap photos to enlarge
Lots of happy holidaymakers along the Royal Mile tonight …
St Giles’ Cathedral – the High Kirk of Edinburgh – recent host to the fabulous peace exhibition, Les Colombes (link) – Wings for Peace
The Old Tolbooth and Tavern and its 1884 clock
Canongate Kirk – next door to the beautiful Dunbar’s Close Garden, an oasis of peace and quiet just yards behind this busy thoroughfare
Edinburgh has a labyrinth of alleys, ‘wynds’ and ‘closes’ that make whizzing from place to place a breeze for pedestrians-in-the-know – though I often wind up with sore feet as I walk for miles and miles in this most photogenic city, uphill and down (x multiple repeats). This one, leading down to ‘Dynamic Earth,’ Salisbury Crags and Holyrood Park, is just off Canongate, a section of ‘The Royal Mile’ that runs from Edinburgh Castle, sitting high on its volcanic rock, to the beautiful Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s Gallery, and the modern Scottish Parliament building at the bottom of the hill.
Cobbled streets are boneshakers when travelling by bike or bus!
Build it, and it will come
Empty out a drawer for someone
They will fill it
Share your work every day
People will find it
Walk and your legs will strengthen
Open your hours and your days will fill
Speak as though you’ve arrived
And reality will realign
Brianna Wiest
Salt Water
Spring’s awakening in Edinburgh is wonderfully underway and I’ve been out and about early. Delicious coffee and cake @kates_edinburgh preceded one of my favourite sorts of morning: an amble – in no particular rush and in no particular direction. This is a city that ‘offers itself to your imagination’ (as Mary Oliver might have said of it) – no matter where one roams. Birdsong everywhere speaks today of their having ‘arrived’ (again) and of the energetic building of nests in empty spaces. A beautiful new coffee shop shares its work every day and ‘people will find it.’ My legs do grow stronger, and hours are containers for rich colours and conversations. I speak of my thankfulness and – awakening thereby – the realities of a new season do indeed ‘realign.’
This is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that we live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony; growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass; and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.
Patrick Geddes, 1854-1932
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Our species could not have evolved until plants had created the air we breathe. They feed, shelter, fuel and cure us and if we want to secure our future we must tend to the leaves. If we become global gardeners, plants will provide for our future.
Stephen Blackmore, 2009
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Even on a dreich day in Edinburgh, shrouded in mist, there’s still a wonderful buzz in the city – where the Science Festival exhibits outside the Royal Academy are attracting good conversations and cheering laughter.
The thing that’s delighted me most today, though, has been the arrival of Victory Kitty from Ukraine (link) into the household of the inspirational Yaroslava – sharing her #warcoffee (link) tweets with a huge and inspired community of wellwishers all over the world.
Newly returned to their own home, Yaroslava and her son have been longing for the arrival of their new kitten. It has truly warmed my soul to see images of the tiny bundle of joy playing and settling with them.
There are some really great souls in this world who encounter Victory in tiny, gentle, lovely things, no matter what …
🙏💞🇺🇦💞🙏
bootprints …
Simon Armitage
Poet Laureate
Daily conversations touch upon the shock and grief that pervades the air as hearts reach out to Ukraine. Closer to home in the UK there are daily reports of extreme poverty as energy and food prices soar. There and here we struggle to find words to express the sense of helplessness and underlying fear in so many, many lives. And so for me, tonight, as so often before, I am profoundly grateful for those whose words, and others whose whole-life examples, articulate what, with the best will in the world, I cannot …
💞🙏🇺🇦🙏💞
Aftermath | Ricky Justin George | Bronze | 1998
in Castries, St Lucia – just around the corner from the most gloriously colourful church, itself a work of art; and from God’s own beauty parlour!
My friend Lori’s enjoyment of The Watcher in my North Berwick post the other day brought to mind what is probably my favourite piece of public art. Visiting Castries in February 2020, my immediate response to the gorgeous Aftermath was that it holds space for a million and one human stories. There’s so much aliveness, excitement, joy and relief here that doesn’t need any more words! You’ll hear the story tell itself from within. And maybe tomorrow another one – because the light shines on different elements at different times and on different days. And I hope you now delight in them, as I do 😘x
Sunset, Calton Hill, Edinburgh | 9 April 2022
Like a curtain slowly drawn
It stops suddenly half openJMW Turner, 1842
I sometimes think of light personified here in Edinburgh. Like an angel, capable of flight, it’s as though she admires every inch of the city and flitting now here, now suddenly over there, randomly illuminates favoured spaces and places – often just for tantalising seconds before darting onwards, elsewhere. So sights glow and go. Sky silhouettes in one moment and brightly illuminates in the next. With camera in hand I sometimes catch a glimpse of what so inspired the great landscape artists like JMW Turner, paintbrush in his, to keep coming back to the same subject, the same loves and passions …
Just a few photos to remember today by: chosen because they’re great examples of a certain evening quality of light that somehow never fails to touch me. Edinburgh is often described (& in many languages) as a ‘magical’ city. I believe that the combination of gorgeous and ever-changing natural light and some truly world-class architecture have a lot to do with that!
Edinburgh Waverley Station
click / tap to enlarge all photos
Having Edinburgh’s huge Waverley Railway Station practically on my doorstep here is a real joy. On a whim I hopped onto a quiet ScotRail train this afternoon to a decidedly breezy, but no less beautiful, North Berwick. Half an hour’s run, after which it’s like stepping into an entirely different world. A little later in the year I’ll bring books, beach blanket and picnic lunches here …
🙂🏖☀️
North Berwick Beach
The Watcher 2014 (link) by Kenny Hunter near St Andrew’s Old Kirk, North Berwick
The Watcher 2014 (link) by Kenny Hunter
The Watcher 2014 (link) by Kenny Hunter
Shadows – mine (l) & The Watcher’s (r)
St Andrew’s Old Kirk | seabird.org (link)
Early Christians, Pilgrims and Witches
Rockets and Rescues, Sea, Sand and Dances
Archaeology, St Andrew’s Old Kirk, North Berwick
The Watcher 2014 (link) by Kenny Hunter
North Berwick Station
Edinburgh Waverley Station
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Late, great breakfast at the fabulous Kilimanjaro Coffee on Nicholson Street this morning. Friendly, warm and welcoming.
Imagine an architectural era of craftsmanship when Edinburgh’s beautiful chimney stacks were built of dressed stone …
You just call out my name, and you know, wherever I am, I’ll come running …
Carole King
for Tapestry, 1971
Honestly, sorely tempted by Beautiful at the Festival Theatre – but for the fifth time? Maybe a little excessive!
2021 – Living beneath Arthur’s Seat. Here’s one from a year ago today – one of those times and a Springtime view that’s engraved on my heart …
A lovely couple of hours in the gardens with my book and camera before supper
An explosion of magnolia
New College School of Divinity on The Mound
Edinburgh Castle, parts of which date back to 1103, and integral to Edinburgh’s World Heritage status, seen from Princes Street Gardens
The Ross Fountain, Princes Street Gardens
St Cuthbert’s Parish Church & St John’s Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh
Warm and dry on the top deck of a Lothian double decker is a good place to be on a wet and windy Edinburgh day.
The run down to Ocean Terminal is not at its largely Georgian prettiest right now, choked with roadworks as the city’s tram line is being extended all the way down – decidedly to the chagrin of hard-pressed retailers and those who have to drive the route often. Bus drivers ought to be awarded medals when the extension is finally opened.
Up on the North East coast, Edinburgh is not always sunny and mild, of course, and at times the wind here blows through you rather than around. But even on a rainy day, bus windows streaming, there’s a distinctive, different, beautiful something special about this city …
The number 30 bus to Newington helped me on my way to this morning’s walking. I’ve always had my car in Edinburgh hitherto but have chosen, for April and August this year, either to walk, or to use only public transport – train, tram or bus. The decision radically alters one’s view of the city and facilitates all sorts of happy conversations. I love the cosmopolitan nature of this city – the sound of many languages, the music of innumerable cultures, astonishing choice of cuisine. Edinburgh is loved by locals and by visitors alike, and one hears cheerful conversations and a lot of laughter. And I’m never the only person making photographs – almost anyone with access to a camera speaks of and tries to capture ancient and modern, panoramic views and skyscapes …
more @gardenstudiogram
Layered ‘ghost signage’ – one of many examples of Edinburgh’s history: how many businesses can you spot in addition to Robertson’s Smith and Horseshoer? I can get lost in reverie imagining this great and elegantly built city in the days of horse-powered transport, handcarts-on-cobbles, roads without yellow lines and other transport instructions! And the formal clothing through the ages.
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