Edinburgh
What can I say about Edinburgh? It would have to be my favourite city.
Apart from the history, there’s the beautiful architecture, some streets on a par with Paris. Charlotte Square for example.
And the fortress they call Edinburgh Castle… yes, I love castles.
But I don’t want to make this a travelogue. It was the atmosphere as I walked down the Royal Mile on my most recent visit, that stuck in my mind. And as I had placed Martin, the male lead of The Crash, in that city, I wanted to let him be surrounded by the noise and aromas and jostling of languages that I’d experienced that day.
Edinburgh, The Royal Mile. (Scots Gaelic Am Mìle Rìoghal). The main thoroughfare of the Old Town.
HOLIDAY JOURNAL 2017. EDINBURGH
Edinburgh was full of tourists. I was surprised at how much of the old city I remembered. This little Aussie directed Scottish family members to their desired destinations!
We got to the Royal Mile and walked down the hill toward Holyrood Palace, past centuries old shops, taverns, wynds, and vennels (small lanes between stone buildings), the wet sandstone darker, and the grey stone even greyer in the rain. We strolled past plenty of touristy shops. Bagpipe and traditional Cèilidh tunes jauntily floated out the doors as we passed. Tours advertised on placards promised history and ghosts. Hop-On-Hop-Off buses, in large quantity, made their way through very narrow stone-wall enclosed lanes. Snippets of English in various accents, Asian languages, and an abundance of European tongues surrounded us. The aroma of haggis, battered North Sea fish (the best in the world), fudge, and beers wafted past our noses…We walked by the new Scottish Parliament buildings, so not consistent with the surrounding architecture, and looking out of place, if you ask me.
But nobody did.
The Crash: Community Chronicles Book 1. A Novella
This prequel novella is an introduction to the world in which I set the Community Chronicles Series (a fictitious Scottish future) and doesn’t involve time travel as do the rest of the novels in the series.
The stock market is falling rapidly. People are nervous but optimistic that it won’t be as bad as 2008. But it will. It will actually be worse. Martin will discover the knock-on effect of peoples’ responses, and the effects on his own personal life. His cousin, Caitlin, is the leading character in Stolen Time: Community Chronicles Book 2.
As you can see, my real life has inspired my writing.
Excerpt: The Crash
Martin closed the door of The Mile of Coffee after finishing his shift, zipping up his jacket and lighting a cigarette. At least with his father’s wealth, this sudden drop in the market wouldn’t affect him. Further up the Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle sat rain washed. He turned and headed down the Mile, walking past shop fronts of buildings that were centuries old. Rain made the sandstone a dirty-yellow and the greystone even greyer. He passed entrances to wynds and vennels. Breezes funnelled through them, blowing his exhaled cigarette smoke into his long fringe. The malty smell of beer wafted out as he walked by taverns. Bagpipe music and jaunty Scottish Ceilidh tunes blared out of the souvenir shops. Tours advertised on placards promised history and ghosts, while snippets of English in various accents, Asian languages, and an abundance of European tongues surrounded him.
Ahead, at the far end of the Royal Mile near Holyrood, a crowd gathered, spilling onto the street at the side of the Scottish Parliament building, the modern deal that looked so out of place opposite the seventeenth-century architecture of Holyrood Palace. The angry voices of the crowd rose up along The Mile.
Martin hunched into his jacket; his designer trousers were wet at the cuffs already. He needed some cash, so he headed left down North Bridge to Princes Street.
He’d been a fool about Caitlin. At his father’s birthday party, Martin had caught part of a conversation between Caitlin and Great Aunt Meredith. Caitlin had said when she met the right man, Aunt Meredith would be the first to know. So, if he was the right man, she’d met him already, right?
Wrong.
Man, that was so creepy. What was he thinking? Caitlin was his first cousin, for heaven’s sake!
Martin mentally shook himself.
The rumbling of trains continued underneath him as he walked the bridge over Waverly Station. The sound of smashing glass came toward him, its sharpness snapping him out of his self-reproach. Ahead, a mob clambered into broken shop windows and emerged with armfuls of goods.
Martin stopped in his tracks. He could get to an ATM nearer his flat in Newington. Stubbing his cigarette butt under his shoe, he turned and made his way to the bus stop. His phone vibrated crazily in his jacket pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen. It was his father.