I love flying out of City Airport at night. It’s like a Peter Pan view of all the landmarks in miniature as you watch the river bending beneath you like a dark, glossy snake. We’re in that sleepy time between Christmas and New Year and the mood on board my FlyBe flight to Edinburgh is notably relaxed. ‘If you’re sitting on the left-hand side of this Bombardier Q400 you will see the beautiful city sky scrapers lit up like jewels. If you’re on the right,’ says our casual pilot, ‘You’ll see Wembley Stadium (pause for effect) And Essex’. He concludes the routine with a joke he got from a cracker and heads off into the cockpit, leaving Jane the air hostess trilling like Miss Jean Brodie into the tannoy about emergency exits. I’m sitting above one of the propellers. I know it’s going to be noisy and that my eyes will be trained on it for the next hour and a half making sure it’s still going around.
Post security, I’ve got a ritual at an airport. It starts with an obligatory squirt of Chanel’s Chance in Duty Free which I wear like a perfumed amulet because, apart from the take-off and ascent, flying is something I only tolerate. The clean smell of pink pepper, jasmine and vanilla always make me feel like I’m going somewhere and the sharp, citrusy taste of a gin and tonic seals the moment. I’m unsure why we turn into Wetherspoons clientele at an air terminal, but as with many of my fellow travellers this can be an 11 am beverage and it’s absolutely fine.
I’m going for the all-new lean me in 2020, so this is the first time I have ever flown with just hand luggage. Owing to the number of bottles required for a 5-night trip to the Highlands, it hasn’t been a success. ‘Is there anything here you can throw away?’, says the man at security trying to reassemble my overflowing plastic bag like a task on the Krypton Factor. ‘This is Lancome and Clarins,’ I explain removing it from his hand, ‘I’m going back to the check in’.
My first night will be at The Rutland Hotel in Edinburgh and then onto V&A Dundee to meet my friends Rosemary and Rebecca before we head to Loch Rannoch. The taxi driver who meets me at the airport was born in Pakistan and has been living in Edinburgh for sixteen years. As we drive into the city centre, he tells me how much he loves the people and the opportunities for his kids here. I ruminate from the back seat that I have literally never heard any foreign-born taxi driver say this in England. It seems like I’m not in Kansas anymore and frankly it’s a relief.
The feeling of liberation continues in the bar of The Rutland Hotel. Maybe it’s my state of mind, but I’m looking around and thinking but everyone looks so sane and hopeful! The staff couldn’t be kinder and respond brilliantly when I have an odd episode with a vibrating bed (not as much fun as you might think) due to my room being located above a rogue kitchen fan. It’s temporary and it’s sorted, so frankly if you want somewhere welcoming and luxurious to stay where you can step outside and look straight up at the castle, just book here.
The last time I was in Edinburgh was the summer of 1993. I was performing at the Edinburgh Fringe in an original musical called A Barrowload of Oranges so you can imagine the fun the critics had with that title. We’d rehearsed for a month at Leeds University and arrived to discover that our stage was the size of a picnic rug and located above a Leisure Centre called Marcos. The choreography didn’t fit and the dramatic tension – which to be fair is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting in this sentence – found itself going head to head with the sounds of high impact aerobics that no amount of chest belt could drown out. This lingering theatrical suicide lasted three weeks, culminating with one of the cast being head butted by an audience member at The Fringe Club after we’d performed an excerpt for ‘promotional reasons’.
Other than dropping flyers all over it I don’t remember much of the city, so it feels like a blank canvas. I’ve only got a morning in Edinburgh so I want to get a sense of it’s dark, brooding atmosphere which today is nobly aided by the weather, a classic Celtic mizzle with metallic grey skies. All along Princes Street, Hogmanay preparations are underway. Cherry-pickers are bustling about, men in high vis are carrying huge ropes of cables and it seems as if the world is about to throw a party I’m not able to attend. I head straight to the Old Town for the Royal Mile and the Castle and my first feeling is this is such a youthful city. My second feeling is there is A LOT of cashmere. A kaleidoscope of cashmere, much of which is too stressful to root through. I won’t critique the tourist hot spots, but I will say don’t miss the stunning interior of St Giles Cathedral because (sorry Rome) nobody does a stained glass window like the Scots.
It’s café time because this is after all The Flâneuse Diaries and I have people to stare at. The Instagrammers favourite is The Milkman on Cockburn Street but I can’t get a seat and I’m not sitting outside and getting my hair frizzy. Instead I head to The Edinburgh Press Club which is a couple of hundred metres up the road and serves very good coffee and ginger cake. I’ve picked up a copy The Scotsman and pass over the Brexit news to note that Mackies will be launching the world’s first limited-edition haggis, neeps and tatties crisps just in time for Burns Night. Sorry England, but this leaves your Brussel Sprout crisps IN THE SHADE.
It is my third encounter with the concept of haggis since arrival, with the first being ‘short ribs and haggis balls’ on the bar snacks menu at The Rutland (I passed) and ‘veggie haggis’ at breakfast (I succumbed to the ersatz soya version – pretty good). In front of me three students in their early twenties are asleep on the formica-topped table. Don’t these kids have any stamina?
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If you’ve not seen the Highlands before it’s hard to prepare yourself for its raw, resin-scented beauty. We’re staying on the shores of Loch Rannoch which you reach by driving for bloody miles along a slalom-poled winding road, warding off car sickness by keeping your eyes trained on the horizon like an ancient mariner. On our first morning we take the dog for a walk and climb up what is effectively half a small mountain, a fact not revealed to me until we are some way up it. I’m unfit and as far away from mountain goat sure-footedness as you can get, but I really want to do it because there’s a memorial bench at the top dedicated to Rosemary’s lovely daughter Emma who passed away five years ago.
There’s not much call for waterproof trousers in North London so I’m in borrowed gear and half way up I’m getting an uncomfortable flashback to a teenage skiing trip where I was also perilously out of breath and sweating in salopettes. I stagger on and arrive beetroot faced at the bench whilst Mabel the Sprocker, springs about like an Olympic athlete. When I said The Flâneuse Diaries, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but the view is incredible. Oh Emma, you will be laughing at me now.
It’s odd how travelling to new places can trigger old memories. On the way to Dundee, the train stopped in Kirkaldy and I found myself staring at the sign thinking: Hang on a minute. Didn’t I once date an alcoholic from Kirkaldy in the late 90s? Didn’t I once spend the worst EVER New Year’s Eve being completely ignored at a house party in West London by a total knob in a kilt who didn’t even want to kiss me at midnight?
For those who have followed me for the past decade, you will be aware I am actually a fan of New Year. I don’t have to do anything splashy, but I do have to experience something different and this year it’s going to be the Loch Rannoch Village Hall where there is a live band and possibly some sort of Kayleigh. (Yes, I am aware this is a song by Marillion but as well as being frightening to do, I find it absolutely terrifying to spell).
When we arrive the band – who front the small gathering like they’re playing Wembley – are largely belting out covers from the past three decades. With the exception of two blonde ladies of a certain age getting down to Don’t Stop Me Now in matching wrap around sequins, the dance floor at this stage is sparsely populated. Most people are drinking or counting raffle tickets and, around the sides of the room, an assortment of children with jet black hair and splashes of tartan are jumping into the splits like Italia Conti graduates. I think we can say the atmosphere is camp.
It is, however, going to get a lot camper. The music revs up and a young girl with a high ponytail sails onto the dance floor spinning a woman in her sixties around in her wheelchair like Debbie McGee presenting a magic trick. An absolutely shambolic Gay Gordons ensues sharply followed by a vigorous Strip the Willow which is funny but goes on for a long time (almost as long as the raffle which seems to stretch to the end of the decade). In true flâneuse style, I am observing not participating, but once the horror of group dancing is over, I’m back out there and I’m getting ready for 2020 which as ever with New Year’s is a total anti-climax.
After a deafening Auld Lang Syne, the band launches into The Proclaimers 500 Miles and everyone, (even the eight-year olds) knows ALL the words and they’re singing it like an anthem. There’s an unfamiliar atmosphere which I later realise is a feeling of intergenerational harmony and community spirit. When Billy Connolly said recently in an interview that Scotland was in great shape politically and socially, he wasn’t wrong. I feel impressed and rather envious.
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If you’re a shopper like me you really need to go to the fabulous House of Bruar near Blair Atholl, a Caledonian style Harrods which is equally bewildering in layout. The clientele is a mixed bag, but you can always entertain yourself watching gaudy nouveau riche types kitting themselves out for a shooting weekend. The women’s clothing department has a thoughtful area for catatonically bored husbands where there are squashy sofas and a roaring fire and where you can flick through copies of Country Life mentally purchasing real estate. It’s unclear why the young shop assistants are made to dress like Dr Findlay’s secretary, but let’s hope they’re on a good commission.
My own shopping is confined to getting ready for the north of Norway in February where I’m told it’s a balmy minus 15 and where – if we’re in luck – we will see the Aurora Borealis. I have plenty of form with Scandinavia, but more of that next time. For now I’m packing my Norwegian friend Tom’s top British essentials – mince pies (are they now as rare as hen’s teeth?) Terry’s Chocolate Orange and Bisto gravy granules. And this time, no hand luggage….
