The Ned Wood Archive

For my love is like the wind
And wild is the wind

It was a day for collectors. A day when you could go out and collect the full set. Collect all of the different types of cloud in just one walk. Big ones. Small ones. High ones. Low ones. Skinny white wispy hairy ones. Obese white bubbly cotton wool ones. Flat grey sheets of cloud. Fine grey mists of cloud. Angry grey boulders of cloud. Wet clouds. Dry clouds. Happy clouds. Ugly clouds. Even blue no-cloud clouds. And an excitable crazy wind to shuffle all of the clouds and deal them out randomly to all of the walkers brave enough to go out and complete their collection of clouds.

I head out across the Meadows. The wind is racing backwards and forwards cutting across my path. I’m getting blown around. Everyone is getting blown around. Dainty lads & lasses are pushed backwards and forwards and from side to side in front of me like ballet dancers, their toes twinkling across the ground. En arrière et en avant. En Couru. Une pirouette ici, un jeté là. De côté à droite. De côté à gauche. Good toes. Naughty toes.

Round George Square, groups of students are buffeted by the wind. Blown around, sometimes in unison, sometimes individually, but always kept close to each other. At the command of the wind, they’re pressed into the dance of the Jets in West Side Story. Sometimes walking, sometimes running, sometimes leaping, sometimes crouching, Little world, step aside, better go underground, better run, better hide.

I’m gonna collect the full set of dance moves today, too. Over on Nicholson Street, near the Surgeon’s Hall, there’s this guy doing his own thing. He’s got a raft of random moves. He staggers like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. He swings round the pole of a traffic light like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. He spins like Fred Astaire in Putting on the Ritz. Then he falls over like a Keystone Kop in one of those silent black and white films they show at Christmas.

Down on the Bridge the wind really hits as you pass Arnotts and the Scotsman and cross into the open. Here there is an intrepid couple headed toward the North British. Arm in arm, they stagger forwards. They step once or twice, then twirl round in a circle. And another circle. Another step, then another circle. They’re caught in a tornado twirling and whirling and gradually spinning towards the end of Prince’s Street. I follow on, placing my feet carefully to avoid being sucked into the vortex.

No. Too late.