Saturday 20th August 2022 10am

Start by the bridge near

Slateford Rd

Leaning on the

angled fence post

where I ended yesterday

The wind is gusty

The rain is “threatening”

Exhilarating weather

with all the feels

Canal ripples in the same direction as yesterday

so, a south west wind again

Learning the wind with my body

Leaning into it in

direction of travel

It is quiet and peaceful

meditative someone said

Flanked on either side of the tow path with green

verdant wildness

So alive and lush

woodland to the right of me

I circle round the trunk of a big

old beautiful

beech tree

and rest there for a bit

Spine against trunk

It breathes into me

Ivy so much ivy

on fenceposts and treetrunks and ground

An ivy carpet

On the canalside

small stones

peaking our from the ground

Stepping stones

to balance on

That wall has been with me

3 days now

It’s a long wall that

once was

I pass milestone 3 today

Waymarkers

weatherbeaten

worn

Reassuring

warm

strong

I stand on this one

Balanced, straight

and tall

Further on there’s

a bridge of hewn

stone, also worn

and weatherbeaten

now in undulating forms

Bareskinned foreaems

trace its curves

and hollows

Soft and alive

Properties of it and

properties of me

There is so much

faded glory on

the canal sides

material remnants

of fences

and gates

and walls

rusted

bent

abandoned

fallen stone

discarded

rotted

steps to nowhere

passing times

and times gone by

Yet it feels tended

and lived in

and loved in

and cared for

I learned today of

its undulations.

Made that way so

that it could remain

level and not require

lots of locks.

What did it follow I

wonder?

Sheep tracks

Contours of the

land

So it has been shaped

by nature as well as

shaped by plan.

Not as the crow flies.

Awed today to find

that the canal

crosses above the

Water of Leith

and is itself a bridge and a viaduct

The weight of water

walking by water

that’s held above

the ground

That narrows

and widens

and weaves

No sense of being

in the city today

Except for the sound

of traffic in

some places

No houses to be

seen on either side

Alone sometimes

I dance

along the tow path

Keen to not disturb

the gentle rhythm of a place

Reclaiming the gentle, the slow

The soft and the fluid

Thinking how removed

the gentle is

from the disruption

of gentrification

NEXT: Sunday 21st August 2022 – 2pm – Just beyond Stoneypath Footbridge near Easter Hailes – a 44 bus will take you there

Redhall Footbridge