On a train, going to meet up with friends we have’t seen for just shy of thirty years, last time the other side of the globe. (Also, trying to recall the last time I have been in Auld Reekie … six, seven years?) Once upon a time, a postgrad student then, this was my regular commute; that too is a quarter of a century ago, almost as in a different life.

There are some changes along the way, a few more houses here and there, the industrial park just before Haymarket grown in size quite a bit, but all in all, it’s the same old familiar; little details popping up into my head just before they appear outside the carriage window.

We remind customers not to feed the pigeons in the interest of hygiene and public safety …

O’ Waverley, how I have missed you! (Aye, right.)

(I control an urge to buy a bag of chips to feed the pigeons, here and now. I have always admired their ability to carve out a living inside this place, one legged skulkers hopping about the platforms, getting on with life. I expect that hasn’t changed; trains still need points.)

We have some (planned) time before the meal, and so the next stop is the National Gallery.

But first, the ‘Christmas’ Market to be avoided; some sort of a tall attraction contraption right next to the Walter Scott. I am lost for words … tacky, kitsch? Something else? The one-way system through the market making the pavement just outside it near impassable.

It dawns on me that in spite of spending three years on the Mound just above the Gallery at New College with old Knox, I have never set a foot inside here.

The Gallery is definitely worth a visit, lot’s to see, pieces by some of the biggest names in the (painting) business. And free too!

I am particularly struck by The Legend by George Paul Chalmers: such an exquisite use of light (though the photographer in me finds it necessary to subject it to a critical analysis; unless there were two suns out there on that day …).

Quite a few classic, stunning, moody, romantic landscapes, the kind of imagery that has shaped the image of Scotland ever since (not unlike the contemporary landscape photies of Scotland; in their shared artifice, of choosing not to see so much).

I am also reminded that art has always been as much about making living as something deeper. There are great many paintings here that, though technically brilliant, lack something of the artist’s soul; much of the classic portraiture and religious scenery here strikes me as such.

Some of the artworks have alongside them labels produced by school children, and they are invariably entertaining, and mercilessly to their point:

The artist repainted this scene so many times that the characters look staged …

I wonder what Sir James would have said to that (but I have to side with the bairn on this one).

My favourite of all the exhibited work are the landscapes of William McTaggart. The ephemeral humans hidden in them are such an effective tool to add an extra dimension and to convey something beyond ‘look, isn’t this pretty?’ Food for thought.

Having seen what we could, and made use of the facilities as we could (and for free), we are left with time on our hands. I wonder if Bonnie and Wild still do the resident exhibition for Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year; to compare the old to the new, so to speak. St James Quarter it is then.

It’s dark now, and teaming with people. Unsure of the appropriate verb to describe the movement. Swim? Fight? Get carried? And at the end of this swim/fight/flow there is a long queue in front of the Marketplace; neither of us keen to wait.

We grab takeaway coffee somewhere along the swim/fight/flow back; not bad coffee, but at £4 and a bit a cup, it’s not hard to convince myself I make a better one. A wander around Rose Street, and then it’s time.

The evening goes well: good food, beer, anecdotes from shared past, memories of people we have known; we commiserate on our present realities (that seem similar for all folk our age world over). Hard to believe it’s really been twenty nine (and something) years.

And then our two hours are up: good byes are said, we hope we can see each other again, sometime; I wonder though, what are the chances of us all still being around in ’53? Not great, I suspect.

Rush to catch the train back to normality.

It was nice to be back for a bit, but that’s enough of the Auld Reekie for me for a few years again; enough of a place feart of the armies of one legged birds.