Farewell Edinburgh and thanks for all the fish (and chips)

I went to a poetry workshop in Edinburgh last August. It was called ‘Nothing but the poem’ and they were discussing five works by WB Yeats. I was a bit intimidated until I realised that the group consisted of retired Scottish school teachers who knew as little about WB Yeats as I did. The first twenty minutes was spent debating how to pronounce ‘Aengus .

I mention this because the Annual Book Festival (of which the poetry workshop was one small part) was my highlight of our eighteen months in Edinburgh. It attracts a galaxy of writers to tickle the intellect of all and sundry. I attended interviews and readings with my three favourite newspaper and book writers within the space of a weekend. And is this is my memory of Edinburgh list I thought I’d start on a positive note.

But unfortunately not all my memories of Edinburgh will be tinged with such golden light. I arrived with an ache to get back to the Southern Hemisphere and that meant that I never quite threw myself into the Caledonian lifestyle and perhaps was more likely to notice the negative aspects of life in Scotland as a means of justifying my longer term lifestyle ambitions.

Let me start with dogs. I’ve never liked them it must be said. But Edinburgh takes canine adoration to fetish level. On manys the wet day (and there were plenty of those), I’d sit on a bus and have a dog sniff at my shoes as we trundled along before nuzzling my groin with his soggy snout. The owners invariably thought this was adorable. Dogs in cafes were also popular and they would sit staring at you mournfully as you struggled to finish your food above the aroma of soggy mutt.

But mention of cafes does remind me of the food, which I really enjoyed in Edinburgh. It’s not quite as eclectic as Melbourne, but as a British city, Edinburgh benefits from the fruits of the empire, in particular Indian food.  I also ate more fish and chips than was good for me, mainly due to living within 100 metres of “Scotland’s best fish and chip shop” (although in my eighteen months there I noticed at least ten places that made claim to this title). A friend of mine in Melbourne once looked at me sadly when I told her I was about to visit Ireland and said “Ah, real chipper chips”. I never really understood what she meant until I lived in Edinburgh. Chips in Britain and Ireland are infinitely better than anywhere else in the world, particularly down here in the Southern Hemisphere. I believe the difference is due to the liberal use of beef lard in Northern Hemisphere cooking, but just in case my doctor is reading this, I’ll say no more.

Edinburgh is a rich city and they certainly collect enough in council tax to make you think that they could run a clean and efficient city. But if you saw the litter on every corner you’d think otherwise. They don’t allocate bins to each house as they do in every other city I’ve lived in. Instead, a number of covered skips are placed on each street corner, one for general rubbish and the rest for various forms of recycling, apart from glass which needs to be brought to remote parts of the city, accessible only by car. Like many of our neighbours, we didn’t own a car, so trips to the glass drop off had to be planned with the detail of Scotts trip to the Antarctic and given the Scottish climate, was often done in similar weather.

These skips were emptied on Mondays and by Wednesday they were full to overflowing. Plastic bags would build up around them which the fat and frenzied seagulls would tear apart. The city gets 4 million tourists a year and yet it allows the streets to look like downtown Mogadishu.

But if you didn’t like the dogs and litter, at least it was easy to get away, whether it was the train down to London or a budget airline flight to somewhere in Europe. In our time in Edinburgh, we visited many places but I especially liked getting to Ireland regularly to visit friends and family.

There was also the Scottish countryside to enjoy. I have always been proud of the rugged beauty of the West of Ireland but I have to say that the Scottish highlands are even more spectacular. Glencoe in particular will live long in my memory. If God designed a back garden, I reckon this would be it.

Our Scottish adventure is now over and we have set sail for New Zealand. The rest of life’s adventure starts now. The trip over was pretty exhausting. Adults can adjust to time zone changes. Kids less so. But we’re over that now and getting used to living in a warm climate again. I became a complete woss while living in Australia and really struggled with the weather in Edinburgh. They say that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. But no amount of clothing can stop the icy wind that whips off the North Sea from percolating into every fibre of your body. The rain seemed to be incessant in our time there and the daily commute in buses fogged up with condensation and reeking of wet rain gear wore me down.  I longed for the sun and the chance to wear shorts and sandals again.

It has been roasting since we arrived and too hot in fact to leave the house between 10am and 4pm. Ironically, it rained today and we welcomed it like mana from heaven.

Happy Christmas to all and I hope 2016 brings everything you hope for. From my point of view I’m hoping for a good job and to find a nice house to live in. It’s not much to ask for, is it?