24th August 2022 - Wednesday - 7.45pm
Start at the stone throne off Wester Hailes Quarry Park
Warm
Sunny
Still
The sound of football
and
ice-cream van chimes
Heading away from
the sunset
Thinking of the Quarry
and the mighty
stone
all the hustle
and bustle
heft and haul
sweet physical labour
noise and swell
once ringing out
from this place
And long before
that
Hailes = a plural
word signifying
“mounds or hillocks”
and
Colinton = may mean
the town of Colin
or be derived from
a Gaelic word
signifying “a hollow”
1805
Excerpt from Amanda Thomson’s work for EAF
Places change
The question is
who decides
and why
Who has access
and what are we
allowed to do there
will we allow and
support a place
“simply” to be in its
own quiet way
Tended and cared
for but not in
your face
A space and a place
that sits unannounced
no entertainment
laid on, no tickets,
no timings
A place that invites
us to be, together,
to find ourselves,
where we have
choice and simplicity
and abundance.
Where we and it,
and others
can meet each other,
A union of another kind
“A lot of planning that
we do wants to
deny the fact of time
wants to put on
imprint
a screen down on a
city that says
This is what it
should look
like
in so doing
you are repressing
in your planning
the capacity
of people
to make history
in the places
where they
are
A city that continues to
grow
contains a
lot of
incompleteness
if all of it is
regulated
then an object
is likely to die
because the form
is
TOO BRITTLE
TOO RIGID
TOO FIXED”
RICHARD SENNETT
I move faintly
flexibly
fluently
freely
fully
Sensing the feel
of the motion
coming to know
a place
responding to its
invitations
moving the air
and feeling the
still and the quiet
People are too-ing
and fro-ing
A man with a
bottle of red,
almost done,
comes to
greet me
He’s in a happy
place!
The lights on
the tow path
twinkle, red
and green and
white
There’s a “green man”
weathered into the
stone of the bridge
we smile at each other
and holes in the
sressed stones
a footprint of the
past, a gate
perhaps, or a
place to tie the
horses
I dig my hands deep
into the silt of
the canal
It’s soft and squidgy
and warm
It sticks to my
hands
and stays there
into the night
And my hands move
like
magic
conjuring
beings
NEXT ENCOUNTER:
Thursday 25th August
1pm
Near Stoneypath Bridge and Redhall Footbridge
Making my way to the city