So, firstly, I’m on holiday (but I’m not allowed to be smug about it, given that others are still working). Which secondly means a chance to catch up on things that don’t often happen during ‘term time’ (despite the fact I’m not at school).
One of is the option of meeting up with family. Had the chance to meet Mum for lunch, look round the shops in Bruntsfield, then head on together to see Granny. Now I know you think I could be doing this at the weekend too, and that does happen too. But there’s something particularly nice about doing these things on a week day, as though you had all the time in the world, or at least enough to choose how to spend the day.
One way and another, the combination of buses to get around between these various points in town meant that I was travelling particular routes that I hadn’t done for a while. When we lived in Inverleith, we would frequently get buses that went up the Mound, so I was able to catch up on what has been happening up and down that route. I used to walk home that way when I worked in Bruntsfield, and you skirt the university area between the two, so got a glimpse again of that.
Bruntsfield itself is familiar from a couple of years working there, so the chance to go out for lunch in a familiar area, and see what had changed, was good. Discovered a new children’s book shop, Fidra Press, which both sells their own books – reissuing classic school stories, amongst others – and others. It has a comfy armchair in the window. I can only say it’s a good job for my bank account that I am no longer working in Bruntsfield…
Coming back on the bus from Juniper Green, happened to get one which goes through Colinton. This is the route of my memories as a little girl, visiting my grandparents in Edinburgh, and on occasion, going into town on a double decker bus.
Colinton is a good place for overhanging branches, so if you sit upstairs at the front, they fairly thwack the top of the bus, which is exciting when you’re six, and still quite interesting when you’re thirtysomething…
All these buses pass through Tollcross, where we used to live when we were first married. Again, with the emergence of both German and Polish master baker shops, it is again helpful for my purse, and my waistline, that we are no longer living there…but worth a thought for a return visit.
Now I could do all this on a regular day, it’s true. But travelling at this time of year, with thick frost, with mistiness as you come down the hill into Edinburgh and see the lights below, with shop windows lit up and families out and about having pre-Christmas treats at the theatre or cinema…It’s not so different to being six again. The warmth of the bus, the extended journeys on each route, lull you into a state of observing, watching though drowsy, like a child on a long trip home.
This is my city. I may not always have lived here. But I have been here for over a third of my life now, and I love the fact that I have memories of it before that.
I remember Slateford Road before all the new developments were built. When you could park on a muddy bit of land where the Western approach road now hums between banks and leisure centres in order to visit Princes Street. When there was still a cafe at the top of Habitat on Shandwick Place.
Yesterday, standing by Tollcross, waiting to change buses, a car swung by, and someone leaned out of the window to shout “Merry Christmas!” I can still feel the size of my smile about it, writing today.