And talking about reeks . . .

The library has just got in a book called Auld Reekie : an Edinburgh anthology selected by Ralph Lownie and with a foreward by Alexander McCall Smith. It contains a variety of writings about Edinburgh by a variety of writers. I've only read a few pages but it looks like a nice little book to have on the shelves - might go and see if my local bookshop has it in, I've been trugging around for over a month with a book voucher in my wallet.

I dipped into it yesterday lunch time and came across this little nugget:

"The first thing that must strike any stranger is that Edinburgh is both by natural ordinance and man's contrivance a Capital. It was made to rule; it did rule; and it was robbed of its command. Its kingdom was absorbed. It became the head-place of a province . . .

You can see at a glance that Edinburgh was meant to put its stamp on Scotland, not to take its orders from London. In appearance it is sovereign to the heart of its stones . . . It is the natural capital of a divided country." Ivor Brown, Summer in Scotland (1952)

and just one more to remind GD, GT, Karen and I what we're missing right now . . .

"But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest climates under the heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southwards from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and downright meteorological purgatory in the spring." Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh : Picturesque Notes (1879)