Here Comes the Sun ....

The days of cold, windy rain seem to have broken for now.  Woke the last few mornings to sun streaming through the bedroom windows.  What a treat after the long stretch of dreich.  Today we are climbing Arthur's Seat, a few minutes from the house, for some great views of the area.  Janie has been asking to do this since we arrived.

I had a very funny "Kate" encounter earlier this week.  As I was walking toward the main street to catch a bus, I noticed a group of workmen standing on a corner in my neighborhood.   About six of them, wearing reflective work vests over their coats, were leaning on brooms and tools and chatting.  What a great picture opportunity -- large groups of workmen apparently doing ..... nothing!  I walk past them a few steps, get out my phone and turn on the camera.  As I turn toward them to ask if I can take the picture (and I'm ready to shoot as I ask), they absolutely SCATTER.  One large man in his 40s actually ran to the other side of the street to hide behind the work van.  They get all flustered, one older man says "I'm here doing research, I mean supervising research ... ummmm, just don't take my picture, OK?"


They absolutely would not let me take a picture and every time I raised the phone they turned their backs.  The guy behind the truck never would come back across the street.  Apparently they were city workers doing clean up prep work for the street cleaning truck about to come through.  I never did see them do any actual work.


Most of them were convinced that I was from a newspaper trying to document their loafing, and if I wasn't, then I was taking pictures for someone who was.  We talked about the neighborhood and where I was from in the US.  It took a bit of explaining that I wasn't from Atlantic City (they mentioned the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and the Sopranos -- yeah, uh huh, that should give them a great idea of America).  Daryl has encountered the same confusion about Atlanta -- "Hey, isn't there a lot of gambling there?"


The conversation was friendly as long as I didn't try to take their picture -- the rare elusive tribe of Edinburgh Street Cleaning Indigenous Peoples who are not to be photographed in the wild.