As it was just Sylvia and I today we opted to revisit a session that she had missed out on at the Botanics. It was another sunny Spring day and it was lovely stepping off the chaotic streets of the city and into the slightly less chaotic streets of Greyfriars Kirkyard.
The first sight when entering from George IV Bridge is the gravestone of Greyfriars Bobby, a focal point festooned with flowers; unlike the grave of John Gray, Bobby's owner (and whose grave Bobby sat by for fourteen years), which is down a side path, bare and was toppled over by vandals in 2018.
Like at the Botanics, the unexpected sounds and smells of the kirkyard are 99% human and although we might have been in a green space we were still very much in the city.
Five minute exercise
The sundial garden is lush. But all I can hear are trucks reversing on the street, the low thrum of a vent and the loud Spanish voices of a tour group. The vent is pouring out chip fat odours, which almost mask the smell of weed drifting down from the uneven windows above. But then, underneath, the sun warms the grass and its sweet aroma hits me.
As you can see it was less than natural but then I don't know why I expect such places to exude the unspoilt characteristics of the wild. But just because it isn't in a bubble does not mean we cannot get a lot from such a setting, even when trying to focus on our senses. Humans are loud, engaging (for better or worse) and frankly odd.
Sylvia and I split and she stayed outside while I made a beeline for the kirk itself. I've only been once before and that was for a music performance so I was looking forward to exploring the building freely and without distraction...
Main task
"That's the last of them," Maureen said to me as she locked the glass door behind their seventh tour group of the day. It was quiet in the kirk, the creaks and groans of the wooden floorboards finally silenced after many hours of pilgrims, tourists and the masons working on repairing the apse pillars.
Maureen was putting on her coat, the musty smell of the waxed material made my nose wrinkle but I smiled and said goodnight as she crinkled out the side door. The keys jangled in the lock and I turned them, put them in my pocket and began turning out the lights.
The evening sun illuminated the window depicting Margaret and Saint Helen to the south west. I sat, the smoky scent of the Californian redwood ceiling drifting down as removed my mask.
"Ah," I exhaled, there was a little TCP mixed in with it, but it was comfortingly familiar, like going to Midnight Mass as a child and even Maureen's waxed jacket reminded me of candles and candle lit services and concerts.
I wanted to sing, to feel the vast space but was somehow too shy, even though I was all alone. The ghost of John Knox looking down disapprovingly as I sang popped into my head.
But he wasn't here, no one was here, and no one would know.
Thoughts
It wasn't quiet inside, it wasn't closing but there was definitely masonry work going on. Not what I had intended or expected, but then we cannot control everything and sometimes it is a disappointment that leads us to what we were actually hoping for.
Afterwards I sat outside in the sunshine with Sylvia and it was lovely. We watched a group of adults on a Harry Potter tour, complete with six foot Harry himself, walk through the kirkyard, raise their selfie sticks in the air and shout, yes shout, wingardium leviosa. It felt more than a little disrespectful in an actual graveyard. But the theme continued; a man asked us where Bobby was buried, groups were scouting for Tom Riddle's grave and school kids ran by, using Greyfriars as a short cut to and from George Heriot's.
I guess Greyfriars Kirkyard is less of a graveyard now and more of a tourist attraction, a site of pilgrimage, a nice place to sit and have your lunch. I'm not sure I'm absolutely okay with that, though Sylvia and I certainly sat and had a laugh sitting among the gravestones. I can imagine John Knox giving us all a right telling off.
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