Coronavirus in Scotland: How lockdown helped me rediscover the beauty of Edinburgh, all over again - Rachel Mackie

As the anxiety and stress of the coronavirus lockdown got to me, I took solace in rediscovering my home city.

Rediscovering the magic of Edinburgh saved me during lockdown.

This has been a difficult year for everyone but an unexpected joy for me was finding comfort and magic in Edinburgh, writes Rachel Mackie.

We’ve all heard the advice: regular exercise is a massive aid to mental health and mine was in sore need of aid when lockdown struck.

The Plan

One of my favourite pictures - taken at Duddingston Loch.

Each day I decided to pick a new area of the city to go and explore. Even areas that I knew well, that I had lived in or passed through regularly, were on the list.

Usually when I walk around the city, I’m going somewhere.

Going to work, popping to the shops, off out to meet friends – I always had my headphones plugged in and walked with a determined stride.

Most of the time I was also avoiding eye contact with people, my head slightly tilted down.

Greyfriars Kirkyard in Autumn.

I think most people are like this, I mean, when was the last time any of us looked up?

I stood right at the foot of Scott Monument recently and just stared upwards until I got dizzy, it is such a beautiful structure.

When I walked past the Old College and gazed up to the dome roof, lit up against the night sky, I wondered what it would have been like to study at Edinburgh Uni hundreds of years ago. I wouldn’t have been allowed, of course, because I’m a woman.

Peaceful whispers of the past

Taken in the magical Warriston Cemetery.

My favourite place to go in Edinburgh, especially as summer melted into autumn, was Greyfriars Kirkyard.

That might seem a bit morbid, but it was a place of guaranteed silence.

It was peaceful and in summer it was full of bright and vibrant flowers and lush, green grass.

There is a stillness, a place to breathe.

My attempts at trying to capture an (almost) full moon - love that summer night sky.

I found myself there three or four times a week during ‘full’ lockdown, using my hour’s exercise to cycle there as fast as I could, then slowly wheel my bike round the gravel path.

The joy of seeing the leaves fall from the trees as October hit - with the low, autumn sun sparkling on the grey stone - is indescribable.

Another autumnal wander took me to Warriston Cemetery. which I suspect might actually be magical.

I could imagine imps and fairies hiding behind the large, chipped headstones. It is huge, with winding paths, and gigantic trees with gnarled, stretching branches.

Large parts of it are overgrown with twisting ivy, like nature is trying to reclaim it.

It feels trapped in a different time or a different world.

The top is just a standard Edinburgh sunset (mystical) and below is my magpie chum.

Being followed

I think it was my mum who told me once that when you see a magpie, you have to ‘tug a forelock’ and say hello to it, or it’s bad luck.

There are loads of superstitions about magpies and I’m not a fool, so every time I saw one, I would say hello.

I took inordinate pleasure in seeing magpies everywhere I went after that.

I know they were always there but I was just starting to really notice them. It still felt special, somehow.

When I was walking in the woods at Craigmillar Castle, there was a magpie that fluttered and hopped alongside me for 20 minutes or so; my very own witch's familiar.

The friendly giant

From the day I moved to this city, I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a flat that wasn’t in view of Arthur’s Seat.

My brother told me, when I was a child and we were visiting Edinburgh, that it was named after a giant that once lived here, Arthur, because that’s where he would sit.

I’ve since had cause to doubt the truth of this.

Now I know every single rock on Arthur’s Seat, every blade of grass, every steep, muddy path.

There’s always something different about the sky there.

It seems bigger, more expansive and varied, crystal blue in the bright sun, rolling under storm clouds or blanketed with a million stars.

Again, it just helped me breathe.

The human touch

It wasn’t just the beauty of my surroundings that raised my spirits.

I was walking past St Margaret’s Loch - at the foot of Arthur’s Seat - when I stopped to watch a swan take off and fly to the opposite shore.

I don’t know about you, but I think swans looks bizarre when they fly: graceful and cumbersome all at the same time.

It splashed down next to its flock and, as I turned, I saw someone else who had also stopped to watch.

We caught one another’s eye and he laughed. "It’s like we’ve never seen a swan before,” he said before walking off.

These stupid moments – these tiny, shared human experiences – warmed me.

Before I would have taken them for granted but in the early part of lockdown I felt like I was only seeing the world through thick, smokey glass.

It was as if I was a child who thought the whole world vanished when I closed my eyes, and I was hiding with my eyes screwed up.

It was nice to discover that people were still out there, still angry, amazed or amused, still living.

Hope

The more I wandered and wondered through the city, the more I was reminded that life was still happening.

It has been easy to feel like 2020 stalled, that we were trapped inside for ages, away from the people we love, time fluttering away. It was easy to feel that life just stopped. It was easy to screw up our eyes and hide.

Lockdown taught me to open my eyes again, to look up, to wonder, and to find solace in my city.

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.