Jekyll and Hyde

Edinburgh: City of mist and rain and blown grey places. 

Six, seven, eight storeys high were the houses; storey piled above storey, as children build with cards.

Charles Dickens

At this juncture it would almost seem redundant to repeat my everyday saying that I do love Edinburgh. But that's not really why I'm writing this today I don't think..... not at all... it's more because as life goes on and the days fly by, I know that Vicky and George are going off to university and - hold on a second - I'm actually in my last year.

Who else thought that by the time they hit university they'd have their whole life planned out? I know I did. I thought by fourteen I'd have finished and published The Dance of Shadows. Well, we can see that didn't happen. Similarly, I thought that once I was doing my degree, I'd figure out where I want to go in the future... that's still about as up in the air as the sun. Of course, we're all naive before we really hit reality, children are naive,  but we have to grow up at some point. Rankin has a long discussion about this in Rebus' voice in Knots and Crosses, when said detective muses on his missing daughter and contemplates a student with her Worker's Union 'rascism is fascism' slogan. 

Holt and I had a nice conversation yesterday too, about the people we know, the difference between the people we work with, those characters from outside our respective university bubbles, and all of us that are safely ensconced within it. George and Vicky are quite lucky, they've had their gap years and come back, thankfully not talking about 'tanzan-ee-yah' as if they're part of the roaring twenties, but with the understanding that they have had to work as well. George had a dull-as-dishwater job that was a good commute away from home and he appreciated that it was that job that saw him round Europe in August. Similarly, Vicky worked at our old school alongside our granny, a girl's school called Godstowe, and was earning well below minimum wage but is now nicely set up for university. They have their heads screwed on right (more or less for Allner's anyway) and they're starting the best roller-coaster of their lives. 

Some how, this large tumble of disparate things: the twins, Rankin, dissertations, Holt - they've all muddled up and here I am wondering exactly what I'm trying to say. I wax lyrical and ramble - you know this by now.

So this is the crux I promise: I love Edinburgh. It's the city that I come home to, even though I didn't grow up here. It's the place where the people make me smile, where even on wet, blustering days I look at the skyline and think how glad I am to have ended up here and not Oxford or Exeter or Bristol. For me, even those dark places below the Cowgate or the uncomfortable corners of Leith or the worrisome routes between Haymarket and Tollcross, haven't really reflected a second of Mr Hyde. Sinister stories, horrific happenings - you don't turn a blind eye -  but this is still a city seen through a veneer, the pretty sheen of studenthood. Coming back, knuckling down, going through all that reverse culture shock crap... I don't think it's really a return-from-America-thing, I'm fairly certain it's a 'shits-about-to-hit-the-fan' kind of thing. 

And Vicky and George have all that to come. And Holt's already figured it out and is on to the 'how to deal with it' stage. And Rankin pulls it a part then laughs at it because he was one of us too. That Dicken's quote - Edinburgh being like a house of cards that's been built by children? I'm beginning to understand the metaphor now. 

Good luck twins, hold onto your naivety and follow the forty-five rules written by a ninety year old if you can. Also, I promise this is the last lame-as-broken-blackberry entry. From now, I'm going back to my roots, updating you on what things are interesting and what things make me happy and probably a lot more about travelling. Restless feet have got me moving. 

As ever, thanks for ploughing through my incoherent scribblings. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
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