A rare trip to Auld Reekie on a glorious Winter morning. Sun streaming down Princes Street-not for long as dusk starts at 1045 am when the shadow from the castle plunges much of the main shopping mall into gloom. The usual suspects were in evidence-the pipers, the clipboard ‘just a few questions’ brigade, the man holding a sign post pointing to a golf sale which has been going on since 1980, the beggar with his dog in a tartan costume (the beggar is in a bag), the Big Issue sellers, just as aggressive as their London counterparts, a lady with a designer crutch for her left leg on which she never put any weight and hurtled along gabbling into a mobile phone. AS I returned to catch my train, the same scene but what a difference .I had just been fitted with two digital hearing aids (don’t ask the price) and it was a different world. Bad things: I could hear the pipers blocks away and the beggars dog startled me with a resounding fart from 30 metres. But good too: The designer crutch lady is Portuguese( I assume from her many references to Eyemouth) I could tune into conversations in any direction-returning on GNER I listened, effortlessly to 6 simultaneous mobile phone sagas despite being nearly deafened every time I swallowed my tea. The rustle of an outstretched Big Issue warned me, in good time, of impending highway robbery –ditto the screech of a biro on a questionnaire. At home I will have more warning of low flying aircraft and can work on the computer, listen to the Bill and chat to the wife around two corners without ever saying ‘what’.
Can life offer any more than that?
