Edinburgh, Athens of the North T-Shirt

Streets I have known all my life, one of several that formed the limits of my solitary childhood walks, on long summer holidays, when the air smelt of hops and diesel and lilac. The flats are solid, their windows wide, revealing rooms, glimpses into hundreds of parallel lives. Tonight there is a softness to the sky, the creeping fingers of dusk, a crispness. At the top of the buildings are Grecian features that catch the last of the light, whispering "we are the Athens of the North."