No. 10 Luckenbooth Close used to draw itself up to its greatest height on this hill. A tall observer of the city way down below it. It has watched everything happen in Edinburgh. The fairground being assembled in winter. A child falling and skinning its knee and crying, his blood soaking into soil in the Gardens. A couple breaking up. Stages going up and down. Someone being chased by police. A fox walking down the middle of Princes Street at night. The homeless bird man feeding all the birds at 5 a.m. each day – people shirking away from him when all the commuters come out to claim the city as their own. All the roads running down into the New Town in neat lines, exposing views from city to sea – looking all the way across the water. In summer, sometimes golden fields of hay over in Fife catch the light. Luckenbooth has seen all the hearts break. All the people who started new jobs. Everyone who got back up again and walked these roads. Or there is a soft haze of green hills to seduce the eye on an icy morning. At night, on the other side of the Firth of Forth, a glowing dash of red lights up as Mossmorran bolts fire up into the sky from the ethylene plant, way over in the Kingdom of Fife – a place often ignored (or derided) by the many snobs of Edinburgh. It’s so pretty there. Seals swim out from Inchcolm Island. Fat white or grey seal cubs pop up every year, all black eyes and whiskers. In winter, the hills across the water are snow-peaked and majestic.

Coolly noted by Edinburgh.