City boy

Ever since moving away from the London suburbs some 5 years ago, I’ve said to anyone who’ll listen that I really enjoyed growing up in the Capital but I really don’t feel drawn to the idea of moving back there.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve that become a convert to country living – ok, part of my pastorate is semi-rural and I’m finding it not as alien as I would once have imagined, but home now is in a town of about 25,000 and I still really value and need the convenience that such an environment affords: the shops (especially the ones that open late), the transport links, and so on.

Still, it’s only since leaving the city that I’ve realised how – well – urban it can be. When I’m there now I find myself quietly grieving for the paucity of trees; subconsciously breathing a little less deeply as if in protest at the polluted air.

How different the experience today, though, when I arrived in another capital city.

I like Edinburgh. I can’t say I know it well – hardly even superficially, for I’ve only been here about 4 or 5 times and rarely with much free time to speak of.

In fact, although it’s only a couple of months since I last passed through, I’d forgotten how much I do like Edinburgh. But after a crowded train journey today, I found myself really glad of the time to walk from the station to our training venue near the Botanic Gardens.

Glad to pass some of the shops that you just don’t get in villages or towns – the department stores and fast food outlets on Princes Street, the piano shop with a striking blue Bechstein upright, the two or three hybrid antique shop/pawnbrokers.

Glad also to find myself on a street called Dundas, and thus to be reminded of my training placement in Toronto and all that I learned there about cultural identity. Glad to notice a shop sign in cyrillic script, and thus to find myself in a place that knows about multicultural living.

I found myself glad not only for the time to walk, but for the fact that I was in a city.