Image:Jenni Douglas
Only by this mid-week have I finally begun to feel back to full fettle since arriving home from my sea adventure. The tiredness, sickness, and dodgy legs had all gone, but I’ve still been unable to concentrate, have had headache after headache, and haven’t had much to report in the way of a serious appetite. I’ve also had a few things to deal with this week hence my inability to blog or get on top of things. But I’m getting there—slowly but surely.
My commutes home through Edinburgh this week have left me feeling rather subdued about the whole east coast question. Much like the Jekyll and Hyde comparison often levelled at this city, I too, feel split.
I look at the streets and I think what a sad state parts of this city are in. Obviously I don’t refer to the city centre, and the inner few miles, I’m talking about the peripheral estates and towns, places like Muirhouse, Craigmillar and Pilton are all a world apart from the “real Edinburghâ€.
Maybe it’s just me getting older, but it disgusts me some of the things I see going on around me. Take Leith, a place I walk through almost every day of my life. It has history, character, a buzz, a great artistic community, a small town feel that’s only a stone’s throw from the city, and from that point of view it suits me well. Only last night Gail and I did something we’ve not done for quite a while, and go for a drink down at The Shore under a setting summer sun.
Leith can be very nice indeed. Leith to Edinburgh is what the south side is to Glasgow, and from that point of view, it fits my needs, but more and more as I look round, I realise I still haven’t settled.
Leith is riddled with the cancer of wasters. People who seem happy to waste their lives and make those around them suffer for the crap they have had to endure. Every night as I walk through Great Junction Street and in particular, Duke Street, I have to walk past people out their heads on drugs, drunks bouncing off the walls, fights, spitting, screaming, and even on occasion, men pissing where they stand. It’s a lovely place indeed, but it’s too small for this type of thing, yet most folk just accept it. It makes me mad.
I have a 12-year old and I worry like hell because I see this kind of thing every day. In the few years I’ve lived here I’ve seen some amazing things, like the woman battering her young kid because she wouldn’t stand outside Woolworths with her so she could have a fag. Or a couple of years ago I had to stand in to protect a young girl at a bus stop outside a drug hostel, who was being harassed by a bloke who wanted sex and actually had the look of a sex offender about him.
Last night as I supped my beer in the Waterline Bar, Leith seemed nice again. When Leith is nice it really is a great place to live, but its dark side is all too dominant and makes me want to up sticks and go somewhere else. If only I could take my house, though!
Jekyll and Hyde are (is) alive and well in the port, yet this problem isn’t just a Leith problem, it’s Scotland all over, which is the saddest thing of all. Poor old parochial Scots and our fascination with our own mire.
Anyway.
I’m so behind on my work, email, and blogs just now it’s ridiculous but I will get there. Tonight I have a function to attend and I’m meeting a ‘friend in need’ later on for some coffee and maybe the cinema. My time is already being squeezed as August approaches; best get used to it I suppose.
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