In the course of more than four decades, I’ve lived in: said flat in Dalry, rented out by a lady from Parsons Green who would have given Rachman a run for his money; the garden flat of a Victorian townhouse in Newhaven, a stone’s throw from the Forth, rented out by a chirpy vicar from Oxford; a mews house among the gentry on the far side of Dean Bridge, rented out through Jenners by a posh family from England; a tenement flat overlooking Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat, refurbished and rented out by a young lawyer and his wife; after a lengthy period of exile in Fife and a brief sojourn back in the Ferry, a tenement flat in the heart of Gorgie, owned by Alison; the garden flat of an Edwardian townhouse, a little oasis amid the grit and grime of the West End, owned by me; the garden and lower basement levels of a townhouse in the douce Georgian New Town, owned by the pair of us; not long before our final move to sunny Crieffshire, a 1930’s-built semi in Willowbrae, back in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, also owned by the pair of us.
All in all, I think it would be fair to say that I’ve lived in every corner of Hain’s vision of Edinburgh.