edinburgh

What I love about lovely places is that you walk around for five minutes and say to yourself...I could live here. Now, that may be me. I have, as you may have gathered a very enthusiastic imagination.
So when I go to spend time with friends in places they have chosen to live...  I think, " I could live here."
I want to be very clear.
I went to Texas.  That's a No.
I went to Malaga.   That's a No.
I am not even going to Russia or China. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Korea.
I may be enthusiastic, but I'm not daft.

Abercromby Place. 

Edinburgh, where dear friends of mine have been planning to live for years, having been stuck in the hinterlands of Lincolnshire, have now bought a place in a Georgian terrace, is just glorious.

The Glenogle victorian swimming baths

Cafes, swimming pools,  streets, views, conversation, song, humour.

I could live here, I said.

Maybe next year I'll rent a flat somewhere in NewTown. ( that would be 1802 to anyone impressed by the 20th century)
I'll learn how to play the guitar/penny whistle...I'll work harder on the piano and I'll come to this musical town and walk on uneven streets and sing harmony and speak poetry from the soul.

The theatre festival

The book festival....oh yes.

Edinburgh is intact. I realized as I wandered it's streets, that I am used to cities in Europe that had acres decimated by bombs of the second world war. and over the decades following,  city planners with grey brains put up buildings that have not one..not one virtue. Office buildings. Blocks of flats.
All hideous and unrelated to the ground they stand on.
Edinburgh is pristine. The streets are cobbled. The squares and the terraces meander through the city.
There are young and old people.  The people who are born and bred. The people who're drawn.
The folk singers. The street performers. The University students. .....And then there is The Festival.

I went to Catholic mass with my friend. Lovely Father Nick. Father Patrick was away on a well deserved  holiday. Father Nick had support from three visiting priests. One American from the military and two Italians who spoke no English and wore hiking sandals under their robes, who wandered off with their " body and blood of Christ" to some part of the Cathedral and were not seen again until the Benediction.

in the cathedral cafe after mass. made me very happy

how can you walk past this one. I'm not. But some other wendy is.

I thought... I could live here.
My father's family was from Scotland. I could say "  I'm a Murray. My name is Murray" in a Scottish accent.

There's Fife. Across the river.

I won't be drinking beer anytime soon, and I certainly will never be eating a haggis. But I could sip a single malt and strum my fingers on the wooden table as 'Macrimmon's Lament" is being sung.
T'would be lovely, I thought.

I could. I could spend some proper time here.......