Southern England and my buddies in the US are presently dealing with 95-100 (35-37C) degrees heat. I wish them lemonade and a cool breeze to further facilitate happy days and restful nights.
Up here on the North East coast in Edinburgh it’s mild but somewhat cooler, and the beach at Portobello on the quiet side. Nonetheless, I’m spellbound by skyscape and sea – like life itself, sometimes coloured by storm roar and wonder, sometimes calmed by tranquility, soft sound and peace.
I’m endlessly enthralled by clouds – their cyclical purpose and provision, the things we believe we see in them, their seemingly ethereal presence that, presumably, also carry huge weight? I’m off out for lunch … hoping I might bump into someone today, or some day anyway, who knows how much a small cloud might weigh, and who can tell me how they know!
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Portobello’s Groyne number 4 has come under a lot of pressure recently
The journals of our lives (like this one) are filled with very ‘ordinary’ chapters aren’t they? – accounts of daily life that quite often – very often – feel a tad mundane, on the surface at any rate. And yet somehow, in many of us, there’s still an impulse to record some of our experience of the hours – aide memoire – a tool for later reflection and remembering. And it’s often the ‘ordinary’ stuff that comes most readily to mind.
Walking home, at nearly 10pm on a balmy Edinburgh summer evening that feels like early afternoon – peaceful, happily aware of surroundings that make me feel good, conscious of other walkers headed home, slightly out of breath after the uphill stride to the bus stop. Thinking of contact with a number of family and friends during the course of the day. And of flowers and gardens. And the Poetry Library. Noting the bright Italian restaurant for future possibilities. Grateful for the interested friendliness of the lady bus driver on the 113 for Pencaitland, and the many familiar repetitions of the ‘Stop’ bell and the phrase ‘Thanks. ‘night …’ And from somewhere unseen come strains of ABBA –
I’m nothing special, in fact I’m a bit of a bore
If I tell a joke, you’ve probably heard it before
🎶 (Thank you for the music …)
– and I smile, recognising the sentiment. Yet blood and energy is coursing through my veins. I’ve been engaged in non-verbal connection with other ‘ordinary’ humans for a couple of hours. There’s nothing mundane about the dancing class, nothing boring about a hall full of people glowing and gliding and laughing and smiling and seeing and hearing and feeling their hearts beating in their chests like drums. Hearing car tyres on the cobbles outside – because the windows are open – I’m reminded in this dancing of the ‘ordinary’ dance of life, and my experience of that ordinariness is lifted here. Transformed. This journal, this record, this reflection, remind me that if I move myself, if I’m engaging with others in all the myriad ways I and they might choose to engage – then I’m alive! And aware of that, grateful. Profoundly, warmly thankful.
Dunbar’s Close Garden, off Edinburgh’s Canongate, was designed ‘to give an idea of what gardens in this area might have been like in the seventeenth century. The garden is divided into 8 distinct areas or garden rooms, see A-H on map’ (and further information) here (pdf). In 1978, the Mushroom Trust donated the garden to the City of Edinburgh Council. The City’s Parks Department look after the space today.
Many enjoy the gardens in all four seasons. Some sit on the benches in quiet conversation, some bring their workday lunch, others read, while others, like me, contemplate the processions of people who have come here down the centuries: their dress, their work, their conversations and their leisure. And I celebrate the visionary provision of such a place of beauty and of peace.
Speaking of benches: Edinburgh is aware of its place in the annals of greatness. It’s a city that knows there are aeons of history, together with a rich present to be encountered here – and a slowing down to take stock is encouraged and welcomed. Featuring in almost all lists of fine places in the UK that are offering ‘best quality of life’ the unspoken invitation, all around the city, to ‘sit and stay awhile’ is something – among so many things – that I appreciate here deeply.
I’m one among many ‘regulars’ at New Calton Burial Ground (link) – the steep central footpath of which is frequently my route on foot to St Andrew’s House bus stop, Edinburgh Station and to shopping, Princes Street Gardens and the many other delights of Edinburgh City Centre. And today I want to observe that this cemetery is a place full of life!
The oft-seen tombstone inscription Memento Mori – a call to remember the inevitability of death – succinctly encourages wonderers and wanderers to live life fully and well in the meantime. Locus iste – ‘this place,’ this well-lived life, hic domus Dei est et porta caeli – is surely ‘the home of God and the gate of heaven.’
Here lie the mortal remains of architects, authors, builders, clerics, craftsmen and engineers, medics, masons, statesmen, surgeons, tanners, ‘writers to the signet’ (later evolving into what we know as lawyers), parents, children, ‘high and low;’ and many of the tombs look like little roofless houses with lockable iron gates, originally overseen by watchmen of the tower – to curb the enthusiasms of grave robbers intent on supplying the nearby medical school, ‘without whom’ …
And all who come here are treated to a view of fabulously ever-changing sky, the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse, one of the city’s first gas lamps, the modern Scottish Parliament buildings, and the remains of an extinct volcano that last erupted around 350 million years ago – which is to say, they encounter a living history lesson of huge proportions, supporting the growth of well-kempt lawns and flowers, together with literally thousands of opportunities to delve into history and research, all the while contemplating bustling modern life in Edinburgh today – on the way to buy groceries.
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James Spence, Writer to the Signet, 1818
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Memento Mori and a representation of human skull and bones in (unusual) naive art: ‘The Burrying Place of Jas. Strachan, Tanner’
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The tomb of Alexander Henderson, Merchant – with a now open gate
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The Palace of Holyroodhouse (left), Arthur’s Seat, the Scottish Parliament Buildings, and Salisbury Crags (right)
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And then ‘home by another way’ for me today. Walking past the Scottish Poetry Library there’s another invitation to pause, in pavement chalk:
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Living in tomorrow or perhaps yesterday Or perhaps not in time, but not today Here there were only three days in the week And twenty minutes were a full hour
John Cornford
What is so full of life about this city, ancient and modern, is her perpetual invitation to remember, to dig deeper, to know a bit about the root and origins of many things, to stand on the shoulders of giants, to prick up one’s ears to the sound of distant bagpipes on the wind, and to thrive.
. How many cloudscapes have calmed and steadied your life’s racing?
only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one
I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway, what’s wrong with Maybe? You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen. I’ll just tell you this: only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.
Mary Oliver, The World I Live In. Felicity: Poems | Penguin Publishing Group, 2015
How many poems have given your imagination a much-needed workout? The world of the ‘ordinary’ is actually extraordinary. And life is an invitation to see extraordinary ordinary everywhere. In front of you, around and behind. ‘You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen.’ And in this afternoon alone I’m expecting to see more. Life is an open door …
. How many shopping carts might be needed to transport the groceries of angels-in-ordinary?
. How many life-and-love-stories are playing out behind every window and door, and on every floor of the architecture of existence, all around you now?
I’ve always valued quiet hours and spaces. Edinburgh’s a lovely city for peaceful night-time ambling. And given that it is, in a million different ways, a busy and bustling city by day, it’s a surprise to some that there are lots of quiet sunlit green spaces to retreat to. A favourite spot for a couple of chapters for me is the lovely little Dunbar’s Close Garden, hidden just off the Royal Mile. Today I closed my eyes there, meditating rather than reading, on words engraved in stone not far away, in 1677
My lovely friend and poet Julie Carter came for supper tonight. We’ve laughed a lot, been thankful for a lot, and cried too. Most of all we’ve talked about our human need to hang on to hope whilst noticing the indomitable insistence on peace and the fundamental goodness of life in some of the most unlikely, hurting places. May I commend this video, and Julie’s ‘Songs of Springtime’ (link) … ?
A sunny start to the day in Holyrood – perfect for a picnic day with a friend to encompass a boat tour of the three magnificent bridges of the Firth of Forth, and newly hatched gull chicks on Inchcolm Island. Just magnificent and lovely …
Edinburgh effortlessly accommodates old, new, art and green – plenty to see and delight in, even if you’re just on a day trip. But if you’ve a bit longer, and can simply amble at leisure, this city reaches into your soul … and the phrase ‘I’ve fallen in love with …’ often applies as much to this capital as to people. Here are just a few captures from an hour or two out and about this afternoon.
A helpful pointer
Cheyne Street’s been celebrating 👑
The new St James’ Quarter
Just a few inches above the ground – mosaic on the right hand side of the footpath down from Regent Road to Lochend Close, Holyrood
What’s to be done on a misty, rainy day in Edinburgh?
Have you finished your housework and combed your hair?
Yep!
Then I’d settle for warm and dry if I were you. Letters and some catch-up emails, perhaps. And how about coffee, biscuits and a lovely long read near your window – so you can watch the mist and rain too?
You know, you’re an inspiration. Thank you. Warm. Dry. Watching the haar. Several books on the go on my Kindle. That’s exactly what I’m going to do …
Does anyone else read and read and read until, eventually, you realise you can’t see the words anymore because it’s long-since past time you turned a lamp on?!
An Underground Rail Strike led to pandemonium in London this drizzly morning. Major bus delays and absolute lock-jam for cars meant that I missed my booked train home to Edinburgh, and – shrugging my shoulders – surrendered to having to buy a new ticket for a later train – which delivered me, four and a half hours after boarding, to sunny Scotland.
But the inconvenience en-route isn’t really the point of my story. That would be Khadija, a young Somalian woman, the driver of my mini-cab-going-nowhere, who is so full of joy-filled sunshine we might have been reliving yesterday’s ABBA Concert. ‘Hellooo,’ she exclaimed several times in the course of a 50 minute crawl, ‘Hellooo: we’re alive! I woke up today and I thought ‘hey! – I’m still here.’’
And I came to learn about Khadija’s family, and about how Covid lockdowns had on the one hand rendered her unable to work (mini-cab driving) and on the other hand, immeasurable joy: she’d volunteered to support neighbours who struggled to shop, or with loneliness. She brought them food and – I don’t doubt for a second – entire summers’ worth of sunshine. But all this was nothing, Khadija told me, compared to the joy that those ‘helped’ gave, and continued to give, her.
Khadija is raising small children – and the well-being of her neighbourhood. ‘Other people reflect back to us all that we decide to be ourselves, each and every day. Smile and be happy then. And what you get back will have you sayin’ ‘Hellooo: we’re alive!’’
Missed trains and traffic jams, like clouds, have silver linings. I’ll long remember the ABBA concert and a lovely dinner in Paddington with my brother, his wife, and an old friend. But I won’t be forgetting conversation with Khadija anytime soon either: ‘you know what’s really great about my job? You get to see, every day, that the world is FULL of really beautiful people.’
With a mind’s eye image of Paddington, that dear little bear, taking tea with Her Majesty the Queen yesterday, I walked in sunshine past the Scottish Parliament and onwards up Calton Road to Edinburgh’s Waverley Station this morning. I was quite sure that this was to be a magical day.
It was.
Jubilee Weekend. I was headed to the ABBA Arena in London for ‘Voyage’ (link) [official website here] – their spectacular show of a lifetime, winding up at evening in Paddington for dinner, sleep that I know will be punctuated by a million memories, and songs that make the hairs on your arms stand up.
Photography and recording were not allowed during the show itself, of course, but I think the few photos of the 3000 capacity purpose-built stadium hint at what was to be a truly electrifying and thrilling return to joys of more than forty years ago and to innumerable evocative memories – with both old and familiar, coupled with some exquisitely brand new.
And now I’m bowled over, at a complete loss even to begin to describe the encounter. What I can report is that our little party, together with everyone we heard within earshot afterwards, felt honour bound to encourage all who can to experience it for themselves.
After dinner, dispersing to our own hotel rooms, my brother gave a perfect rendition of the beautiful and soulful ‘I wonder’ – and at the end of an emotion-filled Jubilee Thanksgiving we’ve retired for the night with the words ‘there are SO many connections’ ringing and singing in our ears. There are. And SO very many of them evoke profound thankfulness. Northwards again for Holyrood in the morning, still foot-tapping, with moist eyes, humming.
Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Weekend holidaymakers have been basking (and paddling) in sunshine here in Holyrood – a ‘crown jewel’ of an Edinburgh day! This evening I’m watching tv coverage of the Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace – whilst also watching evening sunshine and seagulls on Holyrood’s Salisbury Crags from my window …
