Edinburgh Part 1: The City of Books

We slipped out of our beloved Bristol like ships in the night. The South is home to most of our family and friends but I decided to spare everyone from some very messy emotional farewells by adopting an effective, if confusing, mixture of complete denial and steely resolve. We also vowed to visit every couple of months and then packed up our flat, stashed most of our belongings at my parents' house and set off on the six hour drive to bonny Scotland!

I like to tell almost everyone I meet that one side of my family are originally from Scotland; my surname is that of a real Scottish clan and we even have our own tartan! Moving to Edinburgh felt somewhat of a home coming because of this and it is probably one of the only places I would have felt happy about moving away from Bristol for. However, even I wasn’t prepared for how settled I would feel here within a couple of weeks (especially because we have no fixed abode and, as of yet, I have no means of income!).

Edinburgh is very similar to Bath (my university city) architecturally, Bristol artistically and culturally and like London in its more cosmopolitan areas. I love the wide open skies, the private city parks with their autumnal trees overhanging black iron fences, the grandiose regency-style flats you can see into at dusk and Edinburgh’s history of publishing.

Ah yes, the lure of Edinburgh’s literary world. Not only is this city big but not too big, posh but not too posh, cold but not too cold (yet!), near to the countryside and jam packed with creative projects, comedy bars, fine eateries and proper old pubs but it was and is home to some of Britain’s most famous writers: Robert Louis Stevenson (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Robert Burns (Auld Lang Syne) and, more recently, J. K Rowling (Harry Potter).



'Poetry and Perfume' night at the Scottish Poetry Library

As you might expect from an English literature graduate, who is an avid reader of fiction and occasional writer of poetry, I go a bit weak at the knees at the thought of walking the same streets as these authors. I am also very keen to attend as many literary events as possible and become a member of book clubs and writers’ groups the city over.
  

The Scottish Poetry Library's amazing building

Within my first week I had discovered the second-hand book shops in West Port and Stockbridge, visited the National Library of Scotland and its amazing banned books exhibition, sat in the Elephant Café and imagined J.K Rowling in the same seat dreaming up spells and potions, attended a City of Literature evening of ‘Poetry and Perfume’ at the National Poetry Library, and realised that my childhood dream of living in a city of books could come true.