Street Photography_Edinburgh_09

Our movement has been limited now. It had to happen. It should have happened sooner. We are now ordered to go out only to buy food or medicine or to exercise once daily. I think people in the U.K. are listening. I've just been going to the shops or taking a brief stroll to a nearby park. The streets are very quiet. The hum of traffic has died down. It's hard to describe as I've never experienced anything quite like this before. A city that is not moving like a city anymore, that doesn't sound like the city it was before now. It is both peaceful and unnerving at the same time. This post will be a brief document of my daily jaunt to the park and what caught my eye. Exciting stuff.

Edinburgh.2020

Edinburgh.2020

Edinburgh.2020

I live on Albion road, a minute or two from the Hibernian football stadium. When the seasons on I can hear the matches from my flat; the songs, the cheering, the drunken revelry. The grounds are very still these days, basking in the springtime sun. The weather has chosen to sweeten now that we are all sequestered to a life indoors. Albion road snakes its way up to Lochend park, a small green space that circles a swampy lake. It hosts an old stone structure called a Doocot that was apparently once used to burn clothes during times of plague. A plague Kiln.

Edinburgh.2020

I've noticed how this area sounds different at the moment. Yesterday afternoon there was an animated chatter of birds and water fowl bouncing round the park. It was almost tumultuous or victorious sounding. It felt like this small, tangled wilderness was having some kind of rebirth.

Edinburgh.2020

Edinburgh.2020

When your options are limited, its makes you glad to have a place like this to escape to for a short while. Holing up in a flat feels very unnatural to me. I live in a six story block where no-one really talks to each other. I don't know any of the people that live above or below me. We all keep to ourselves mostly and even more so now. We are a strange, self absorbed species. I move from one box to another. I surround myself with collections of things. I lock my small box when I go out in case anyone else might go in and take these things. I do this everyday and I presume everyone else around me does this too.

Edinburgh.2020

And so the days begin to melt into each other. Daily reports on the radio. Streams and streams of social media reporting. Some people are panicking, some are being stoic. A lot of people are smoking on balconies. People are stranded in airports. I hear music floating out of windows during the daytime. The swans in the park are busy being just swans. Out my window I see a woman on a trampoline in her back garden. Her head appears and disappears behind a wall. The sky is clear. I am very awake. If I had transport I would volunteer for the NHS but I don't think they're looking for walkers or cyclists right now. I'm hoping an opportunity arises where I can help out. For now I think the best way to help is to steer clear of people and keep the head down. I can do that.