A blur of crisp air, pale stone and space.
So much space, space to breathe and think and be.
Food, food, more food and FUD.
Pints of y’know, everything.
An anti-fascist protest, horse poo and the word SCUM! rolliiin off the tongues lining the street.
Dinner parties, home made German apple cake and muffins in handbags.
Feeling like you’re gatecrashing the adults hideaway, still wearing band t-shrits and grey hooded jumpers when they all wear rain-macs and knee high boots.
Glen’s The Exciting Vodka. No colon, no semi-colon and an argument about a possessive apostrophe.
Trying to overhear people saying ‘hilarious’.
Scottish money, misunderstanding ‘blackberry vodka’ for ‘black puddin’ vodka’ and accidentally ordering three drinks for two people on two separate occasions.
Ridiculous pulling techniques of Edinburgh boys (lifting girls up off the ground, walking into girls, standing next to and simply looking at girls?), one too many shots of green and pulling our feet off the sticky floor of the Bongo Club as the birds started a cacophony.
Walking home up roads chipped out of pale, cold stone - our drunken chat bouncing off the old walls and places where weary ghosts rest their heads in between tourists.
Watching curling on the big screen and eating, eating, eating hangovers away and hearing people whoop.
Getting a train that was fully booked and having to stow-away in a seat that wasn’t mine.
Listening to What Would I Want? Sky! while shooting through the beautiful snow covered tops in the Peaks, the sun glinting off all the best bits.
As the night started to take hold and the train rolled over the dusty white hills my eyes fixed on the orange shot through with bolts of pink rising above everything. Country Mile by Camera Obscura started climbing into my ears. A song that always makes me so sad, or so thoughtful. Or both. One perfectly round tear rolled off my thick mascara smudged eyelash. It rolled until it reached a crease in my face where I had been smiling and exploded across my cheek like a tiny water balloon.
My hand, enveloped in the cuff of my grey hoodie like a child (the one that had made me feel less than grown up the day before), darted up and wiped the salted splashes…just before the man sat next to me realised that even after 24 years on the planet I still couldn’t quite cope with moments like this.
It’s lovely up there: fun, beautiful and crammed with cracking people.
Everything seemed so clear and so bright in the gentle light of Edinburgh.
