Bartimaeus

Surprisingly Scotland seems to have had a spell of warmer weather than southern England. I am assured however, by my west of Scotland based nephew, that it is not dry there. On the east there have been some overcast days but very little rain. I had a walk with my niece and sister taking in the canal and the water of Leith. Even if I am not living on water, it is nice to be near it. Most of my walks incorporate some water.

Shane got official notification of the extension to the lockworks, a bit late now we have had to return anyway. He has let the Ortomarine staff know we are still stationed at Saltisford. The colder weather hampers their repair works it seems, related to the glue setting. Spring is in the air however with birds in our garden doing paired aerial displays, clusters and carpets of snowdrops in gardens and woods and a few crocuses opening.

One day was looking very bright and Shane was keen for a walk, we got a bus to Stockbridge, where I used live as a student (before I had even met Shane). These buildings have experienced quite a lot of flooding over the years being next to the Water of Leith. I enjoyed seeing new changes, like a flood defence and bridge over the water of Leith and pandemic library, as well as the traditional parts of the rows of houses that I remembered, such as the street names and the tradesman symbols carved into the walls of the houses. Unusually the row of houses are named with 1-15 being the lower floors and 16-30 being upstairs accessed from the other side of the building, rather than opposite street sides having the same name with odd and even numbers. When I first went to look at the room in the house, I had not met this system before and went to the wrong address.

The stone plaques depicting tradesmen’s tools signify that they were built by a workers cooperative. The workers were involved in the building and were residents and shareholders. Stockbridge Colonies were the first set of these houses to be built in Edinburgh.

Having followed the Water of Leith to the Colonies, we then went along an old railway path until we arrived at Leith. Shane was wanting to see the sea, but there is no beach here. By this time the sun was hiding and the seascape was pretty grey. We could see a cormorant or shag stretching its wings but too far off to see any details.

Walking further along we considered, for future reference a pub selling food that faced over the sea. We had already eaten at Stockbridge so not for today. It looked promising though. We boarded a bus back home from Leith.