Playground Hills

Walked Juno over to the allotment. We walked over one of the Craiglockhart hills.

Thought I would do another history of ecodad in 100 blips.

These hills were my adventure playground when I was young.

What really caught my eye was the plant growth on this hill, we used to spend hours sliding down the steep grass slopes on bits of cardboard. The slopes kept short grass as we used it all summer. In the winter only the brave took to these slopes. This hill stand in the Merchants golf course and we were always being chased off. The summit gives great views to the Pentlands. I used to sit up there in one of the craters on top and read when things got on top of me.

The hill on the other side of the road was wooded. It had crystal seams in the rocks, caves, hidden ledges and huge trees. A boy's dream.

When I was growing up the hill shared it's slopes with an old style Mental Hospital, this added to the excitement as the myths spread about the patients, this was very exaggerated as it turns out.

I once found a dead fox on the hill, I ran home and got a kitchen knife and returned to cut the animal open in an attempt to find out how it died, who was I kidding. The smell was unbelievable and as I wirte this I can taste it. After my stint as a vet, cleaned the knife and returned it to the kitchen. Wonder if my mother knew.

Roe deer used to frequent the hill and we would try tracking them without much success.

There is loads of gorse bushes as well. I remember getting into a fight and the guy pushed me into a gorse bush and jumped on me. I spent the night bent over my mum's knee, bum up as she took all the thorns out with a pair of tweezers.

As teenagers these slopes were used for sleeping out with huges fires to huddle round. When the sun came up we headed home, taking some morning rolls and papers left outside the shops.

It all seems very tame now with proper paths, housing encrouching, very little signs of children playing alone and only a few areas of old fires.


Turns out that this is one of the haunts of Eco son.