Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Early Morning Edinburgh

We roared through the baleful yellow-lit streets with the traffic lights on our side. The taxi driver had been up since five and would be finished in time to collect his boys from school; the woman's in the sandwich shop had been up since four.
We all agreed that having the world to yourself is quite.  a bonus for early risers.
I miss the cleaners at Docklands. I used to rise at six and be in Docklands at 7.30. Sometimes Francesca would give me a big hug, or I'd stand and chat to Marc, who spoke five languages. Cleaners aren't always the people that other people assume they might be.
Now on the train, I'm heading back to the Smoke for this afternoons lecture. I've been in Ayr, where I work as an External Examiner, and I visited McMum on my way back and did an unplugged spot at Foakies in the evening. Scott MacDonald came over from Glasgow; the evening, hosted by Mark Barnett, was intimate and really enjoyable. We broke off midway through to have an anti-war chat that was probably inspired by the Pete Seeger theme of the evening. Scott was trying out some new songs- they were great-and I'm looking forward to working with him and Martin at the Dumfries Songwriters Weekend in June.
So on to the next very busy Semester at the University. I hope the sun rises before the train passed through beautiful Northumberland so I can gaze at the grumpy grey North Sea, all poised to rinse those pesky humans out of a Planet Earth's hair.

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