Walking The Maroon Mile

 The Maroon Mile stretches from Tynecastle Stadium to the Haymarket War Memorial. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Hearts Football Club, the mile has been punctuated with information boards highlighting local history and the history of the football club itself. I'm not a football fan at all, but we do live very close to the route of the Maroon Mile and North Merchiston Cemetery (where I'm a member of the Friends Group) has connections with Hearts, so the other day, we decided to walk from the war memorial to the stadium and read all the information boards. I'll give a very brief outline here (with photos). 

The Maroon Mile starts at the Haymarket War Memorial which commemorates the members and supporters of Hearts Football Team who fell in the two world wars.  

 The next information post is found near the Co-op, next to this sculpture marking the brewing and distilling history of the area

Further down Dalry Road, near Lidl is an information board about Dalry Primary School which opened in 1878 (and is found on the opposite side of the road, with no good space for erecting an information board next to the school itself). 
 

The next information board is outside the church of St Martin and Tours, which was originally built in 1883 as a Baptist church but which is now a Scottish Episcopalian Church

Moving onto Gorgie Road, Gorgie Farm, the much loved city farm, is marked with an information board. The farm is currently on hiatus as its future is being discussed, with the farm allotments being used for growing vegetables, but the site not currently open to the public and no animals currently live on site. Hopefully the farm will become fully operational again soon. I have many happy memories of the farm.
 

 

 From here, the next stop is Tynecastle Stadium itself, the home of Hearts Football Club

 A slight detour is required to then move onto North Merchiston Cemetery, where several people with connections to Hearts have been buried. The cemetery has two information boards, which you can see on this post on my Crafty Green Poet blog. 

After walking the Maroon Mile, it seems appropriate to have a pie and a pint in the Athletic Arms (aka The Diggers), which recently won Whisky Bar of the Year in the 2025 Scottish Bar and Pub Awards, which is a great achievement. I don't drink whisky, but the pub also offers a good range of beers and the best pub pies in Edinburgh. 

Time to close my Etsy shop?

My Crafty Green Magpie Shop has been open on Etsy for nine years now. I also for a while had a separate Crafty Green Poet shop (for handmade items only) at which time the Crafty Green Magpie sold only vintage and craft supplies. More recently I amalgamated the two shops. Over the years I've sold a fair amount of things, though it's never been hugely busy. Now though, the listing fees barely make it worthwhile, given that sales are becoming rarer. (I haven't helped this by recently limiting my sales to the UK, due to various customs issues with various overseas markets, but then the UK was always my largest market). 

So, at the moment I'm thinking of only keeping the shop open until the current listings have all run their natural course. I may change my mind but it's looking likely that this is the end. You can have a final look around here.  

Update: I've decided to keep the shop open for another year and will probably then close it.  

Making Progress with Learning Gaelic

I've been trying to learn Scottish Gaelic for a few years now and it's a tricky language, as it is so different to English or any of the other languages I speak. I started out learning with Duolingo, but eventually gave up on that, as the course suddenly changed. I attended local classes, but, although the tutor was enthusiastic and encouraging, his teaching style really didn't suit my learning style. I've been watching Speak Gaelic for a few years now, this is a course originally broadcast on the BBC but also available on Youtube. The Speak Gaelic website contains lots of support material to help you on your learning journey. Learn Gaelic has lots of resources and a useful weekly newsletter, which is well worth signing up to.  

Since starting to learn Scottish Gaelic, my ambition has been to win the Gaelic section of the Scottish Book Trust's monthly 50 Word short story contest. Last month, the challenge was to write a story about an elephant, which made things much easier. I have a very short, real life story about an encounter with an elephant that I've told (in English) many times. So I just needed to write a version in Scottish Gaelic, which I could do, using relatively simple phrases and after all it only needed 50 words! And, I'm delighted to say, it won the competition. You can read my story in Gaelic, with English translation, here (just scroll down a wee bit). 

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Meanwhile, the latest post in my Crafty Green Poet Substack has gone live. You can read it here.  

 

What do you call the narrow walkway between buildings?

Growing up in Manchester, we called them ginnels, while here in Edinburgh they're referred to as 'closes' or 'vennels'. Those narrow walkways between or alongside buildings are known by a wide variety of dialect words across the UK. Here's an interesting map, showing many of the words and where they're spoken. 

haiku

funeral parlour -
too cold
for the time of year 

 

originally published in Femku 38. 

Gaelic Graffiti

I was intrigued to find these examples of Gaelic graffiti in an underpass Edinburgh! 

 The graffiti above says: 

"Chan eil mi a' smaoineachadh gu bheil Gaidhlig cudromach: Tha fios agam, gu bheil" which translates as "I don't think Gaelic is important, I know it is" 

The graffiti above says "ionnsaich Gaidhlig" which simply translates as 'learn Gaelic' to which I can only reply, I'm trying!

senryu

third pint—
special relativity
starts to make sense 

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First published in Issue 42 of Prune Juice.  

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Meanwhile I've got two haiku in the current issue of Femku, which you can read here.

Modern 2, National Galleries of Scotland

 Today I went to see the excellent Women in Revolt exhibition at Modern 2, one of the National Galleries of Modern Art in Edinburgh. I'd got there early and while I was waiting for my friend to arrive I took time to take some photos of the impressive architecture. 

The grounds offer views over to Dean Cemetery, which is one of Edinburgh's private cemeteries, so not one that I've done a wildlife survey of! 

The Women in Revolt exhibition looks at feminist art and activism in the 1970s - 1990s and includes paintings, zines, videos and other materials covering topics such as the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, wages for housework, lesbian identity, racism and other issues. It's well worth seeing (in fact I'm going back to see it tomorrow with a different friend!) before it closes on 26 January.