The Ned Wood Archive

The sky will paint an overture and trees will play the rhythm

The trees at the end of the road are bare; their branches scraggy, arthritic fingers reaching upwards and scratching at the pale sky. A light dusting of snow covers the grass like the delicate frosting on your Nan’s best sponge cake. Another day, another weather. My feet leave their autograph on the peppermint white Meadows. Above, the sky is a beautiful light violet colour. The city always shows its true colours, never just grey. Sometimes bright, sometimes subtle. Today the sky over the city starts like one of those pretentious paint colour schemes well off folk use in their bathrooms and kitchens. You know – almost white colours with names like apple blossom white or country joe white. Today starts lavender white and will run through rose white, cream white and peach white.

At the west end of the Drive, there is a memorial to all of the great stones that have made this town. Two pillars that make up of about twenty different breeds of sandstone. Corsehill sandstone like they used at the Sick Kids. Cragg sandstone from which Jenner’s is built. Gunnerton for Morningside. The list goes on and on. And, of course, Prudham stone which they used for the Palace of Marchmont; Visean sandstone, from just near Hexham in Northumberland. Same as the stone they used on Hadrian’s Wall. 330/340 millions years old. Same age as the Peak District limestones I spent a whole summer studying in 1977. These pillars would be an excellent geology test for JJ if it weren’t for the fact that they’ve all got their names engraved on them. I should bring Gav over to study the pillars so he can see exactly how each piece of stone stands up to nature and to man. He needs to find out that it does matter what stone you use and where it comes from. He’ll probably do it on his course next year anyway.

Having paid my respects, I’m off down Brougham Place, Brougham Street to Tollcross. A wee bit more traffic on the road here. Down Lothian Road, past the Odeon. Showing Star Trek with the bald headed lass, Scottie with a moustache, a space traveller returning home, and Spock venturing into the heart of an apparently alien consciousness. Also showing Apocalypse Now with Jim Morrison soundtracking a napalm bombing, Kilgore riding with the Valkyries, GIs surfing after attacking the beach, and Willard venturing into the heart of an alien consciousness that turns out to be all too human. Meanwhile, round the corner in a backstreet, all of the best films are being shown at the Filmhouse: the Tree of Wooden Clogs; the Tin Drum; Christ Stopped at Eboli,….

Further down Lothian Road and the sky, initially uniform and some random shade of white, is breaking up. The sun has finally left its warm bed in Portobello and is making its way across the horizon, never that high, just hugging the hill tops to the south, just about managing to splinter the clouds and reveal itself along with cracks of a different random shade of white – lagoon white, number 12-4805 on your colour chart.

By the time I reach the west end, the sun has slowly started to brighten up the city. One by one, it picks out the rusted crystals in the red sandstone of the Caledonian Hotel. The Locharbriggs Sandstone from a quarry near Dumfries. The sun encourages the grains in the sand to glow like embers in a fire rather than remain hidden behind years of soot. And even though these embers aren’t warm to the touch, the sight of them warms your heart with their soft lambent radiance. Across the way, still in the shade of the Castle, St Cuthbert’s shivers in the remaining snow. A solitary leaf hangs off a tree in the kirkyard, a sentinel waiting to announce the warmer weather to its resting children.

Across the west end of Princes Street now and down Queensferry. Sometimes I’ll pop into Habitat to dream about being able to afford some trendy stuff for the house, but not today. Past that old music shop, past the crescent, then past that wonderful old building on the bridge with its crow-stepped gable roof, and down to the left down Bell’s Brae, over the bridge over the water with the high walls on each side of the river and into the peace of Dean Village. I’m just a tourist here, these are people’s homes, but it’s cute and, as I walk through the courtyard, past the drying lines, still out, though naked in the cold morning, and over to the garden above the riverbank, I can imagine that I’m living in a real mediaeval village. I look up and see the clock tower and the beautiful windows and realise it’s a mediaeval castle I’m living in. Or I’ll stroll round the outside of the building and down to the waterfront and the path where you can walk along the river.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of a cloaked figure over the wall, in the village garden. I turn and she’s off away into the court. I have a sense of recognition, so I retrace my steps round to Damside and I can see her coming out of the gateway, turning right away from me and heading towards Dean Path. I follow her over the bridge, then down to the left, down Miller Row to the walkway along the river. I’m walking briskly but I can’t gain on her. She dodges past the wee turret and under the big bridge and now she’s by the wall above the water. There’s no one else down here this morning, just the two of us.

I haven’t seen her face, but I know what it looks like. It’s the angel I saw at the Royal Circus and then at the cemetery and then again on the crags. I’m following in her footsteps, yet, when I look down at where my feet are treading, I notice that I’m the only one making any footprints in the snow. A solitary line like on the Meadows. She’s walking ahead of me but leaving no trace. She carries on along the river, turns around once, and smiles. But, at St Bernard’s Well, she disappears behind the domed temple. When I get there, I look around. I climb the steps, try the door beneath the monument, search everywhere. There’s no sign of her. I ask young Hygieia where the angel has gone but Hygieia just gives me a wry smile and keeps her lips sealed.