Parliament in the haar

This is typical haar weather in Edinburgh - the sea mist that comes in and blankets the place , usually overnight. Hopefully it will burn off and give us the sun that other places in Scotland will enjoy today.

It did yesterday and last night when I was at dinner in Holyrood Palace (for the General Assembly which is presently taking place) the evening sunshine streamed in, warming and colouring the place. This morning it is shrouded in grey. Indeed it was to the right of me when I took this picture and was almost invisible.

But the haar is also what gives Edinburgh some of its magic. It makes it the city of Jekyll and Hyde and Leerie the Lamplighter ; little wonder because Robert Louis Stevenson must have experienced the mystery of this chill, clinging but still somehow romantic phenomenon a thousand times.