Dilly-Dallying in Edinburgh (Winter), Scotland

Winter. What can I say? It’s a love hate relationship. I love the festive lights, the advance of Christmas and the fruit mince pies. I’m also partial to cosying down with a drop of Baileys (or two) in a hot chocolate. Towards the end of November last year, I thought I’d kick off the festive season early with a stint at the RGBE (Royal Gardens Botanic Edinburgh) Light Show. Fortuitously, one of my friends who lives in the far north of Scotland was visiting Edinburgh at the time, so I bought a couple of tickets and roped her into joining me. Och, she wasn’t too reluctant! It was one of those freezing nights, but clear. We met at the West gate and she laughed when she caught sight of me all rugged up from head to toe, with my massive scarf covering the bottom of my face and my eyes peeking out from underneath my beanie. I don’t think she would’ve recognised me if I hadn’t hollered her name across the path.

The light show didn’t disappoint, nor did the mulled cider with a splash of rum. I had been a bit sneaky and checked out the light installations while they were setting up during the day time so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect, but I have to say, seeing the show at night was an absolute delight. Here are a couple of photos I took, so you can get a sense of the beauty and dreaminess. I had to research a bit for the names of the installation artists, so hopefully I have them right. One Small Thing by Novak reminded us of giant Christmas baubles, with the colours and receding of the circles into the distance enticing us on a magical journey, reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel in the woods. The Floating Candles by Pitaya was just as fairy-tale like, almost a prayerful watch into the mysteries into the unknown. The fiery colours giving an allusion to deep warmth much needed on a cold night.

One Small Thing by Novak

Floating Candles by Pitaya

The following weekend, me and a couple of pals had the privilege of being part of the Davidson Mains Annual Christmas Lights fundraiser and markets. My pal, ScottishSeascapes, and I shared a table with our artist wares and enjoyed chats with folk. In between the chats, we scoffed quite a bit of Becky’s Baking (all gluten free). Those quiches always go down a treat, but I have to say her gluten free reindeer cupcakes are still my favourite. This year the baking lady excelled herself and made the Rudolph’s dairy free as well, with pretzels for antlers. Here is a short little video of my setup on the day.

So, what about the hate part of the winter relationship you ask? Well, the top winner there would be the short days and the darkness. Trying to work when the sun gets up late and the darkness is beginning to settle in already at 2pm, makes things difficult and is supremely annoying when trying to paint. I had been working on a painting of 3 pigeons entertaining themselves on the Water of Leith, which I thought started out great, but just got increasingly painful to paint as the days went on and I messed it up due to darkening the background too much because of the poor light. Not that I can blame it all on the darkness, it had a couple of other issues that no matter how hard I worked on it, I couldn’t rectify. Alas, it will now forever remain unfinished.

Broughton Street Rainbow

Sometimes, someone out there is listening to my gloomy winter thoughts and he turns on a show to cheer me up, I am sure of it. And what a pretty show I got when I was walking down Broughton Street one early afternoon in December. A lovely rainbow just for me (and for anyone else that was looking up :-)). Made my day.

That rainbow kept me going until the next glitzy show on my list. Yep, you got it, the Edinburgh Christmas markets. The markets were, not unexpectedly, packed with people. There were quite a few photo opportunities setup, which I took advantage of, some of which you will see in my photos below. I liked the massive ‘Edinburgh’ in big showy lights, where there was space to sit and sip that super delicious Aelder punch by Buck & Birch I had bought. Yes, it is true, I’ve mentioned alcohol a number of times so far, but remember, it’s winter, it’s cold, it’s dark, it calls for having a warming drink while enjoying the festive lights. Of course, a non-alcoholic warming drink is just as toasty. Indeed, that reminds me that Pochle, a zero waste initiative, were also at the Davidson Main’s markets serving some lovely non-alcoholic made cider made from windfall apples. That also went down very nicely.

Oh and did I mention the wind in winter? Before New Year, I took the opportunity to visit a friend in North Berwick (about 35 minutes on the Scotrail train from Edinburgh Waverley) to walk on the beach, enjoy the Bostock Bakery and see some of the local galleries. I nearly didn’t go because the wind was forecast to have a temper (don’t worry it wasn’t like Storm Éowyn which was raging all day as I wrote this and friends have had fences and roof tiles blown away), but my friend said at the time, to paraphrase, ‘the weather’s always bad in Scotland, what are you going to do not come?’ I laughed. My friend, she’s Italian, positive, a real champion and I’m proud to say is persistent in doing all she can to achieve her dreams. She sets me straight on my negative comments, which I can be prone to. So I braved the walk to the train station, letting the wind whip my hair hard in my face until I had to chuck my beanie on just so I could put that hair under control and be able to see a step in front of me. Once in North Berwick, after our blustery walk on the beach, we checked out the Lady Mâché Gallery. I particularly liked the animal vibe and felt like I had found a kindred sprit in the owner of the gallery. Lady Mâché’s ‘My Chameleon Friend’ was endearing, particularly with the festive paper hat and the curled up tail as it hunkered against the wall. I felt like it was shyly peering at me, just about to say a something in a small voice. My friend said the gallery does paper mâché’ classes, which sounds fun.

Lady Mache Gallery - My Chameleon Friend

New Year arrived and then boom, a couple of days later there was this glorious fresh day where the sun actually jumped out of bed and put on this glorious show of winter light, allowing the beautiful Edinburgh blue sky to appear. Oh wait, yes, there’s that love part of the relationship again. On such a rare winter day of stunning light, I took the opportunity to feed my soul and walk to one of my favourite places, Holyrood Park (also known as the Salisbury Crags or just ‘the Crags’) and in particular St Anthony’s Chapel ruins. I quite like this photo I took looking up at the ruins. Not sure if it is a bit over exposed, but it shows that wintery sun, with its effervescent glow.

Looking up to St Anthony’s Chapels Ruins at the Crags

When I studied at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), I lived 10 mins walk from the Crags and was always coming here, to research, to ponder, to breathe. I still love it after all these years. Here is one of my paintings inspired by the park, which I painted at ECA in first year as part of a timed project where we had to complete our paintings within a specified amount of hours/days or was it that they had to be a certain size? Or both? Honestly, I can’t remember. The paintings then got exhibited in one of the corridors.

Star Crags Attack, Oil on canvas, copyright Kirralee Fisher 2011

In second year, I used to walk up to St Anthony’s Chapel ruins and watch the seagulls drift on the currents of air. I told my second year ECA tutor about this at the time and he said it was overly romantic! Ha well yes I am a romantic through and through (as evidenced by my recent binge watching of Love Between Fairy and Devil, which I thoroughly recommend if you like C-dramas and fantasy). Interestingly enough though, after that observation, my tutor lent me some books on birds to assist me in my research. Sadly there were no birds romantically drifting when I took these photos in January. Even so, I loved sitting there overlooking the magnificent view where I could see snow on the hills in the distance and listening to the A-ha song I’m In from their True North album. I’ve been listening to A-ha a lot recently. Maybe because it reminds me of my sister who had a massive crush on Morten Harket when she was a teenager (not surprising really with his looks and incredible voice).

Steps up to St Anthony’s Chapel ruins

The view from St Anthony’s Chapel ruins

There was also a time after I finished third year ECA when I wasn’t very well. I came to St Margaret’s Loch frequently to get out the flat. Feeling rubbish, I’d sit on the bench under the trees and a little robin used to sit above in the tree next to me, the breeze fluttering the little creature’s feathers. I had forgotten about the little robin (even though you can see the little robin larger than life on my painting on the About Me page) but after I descended from St Anthony’s ruins, who was there to greet me on the path encircling St Margaret’s Loch. What a happy surprise!

Oh yes, sorry, I forgot - the pigeons….

Bird feeder

After returning from Australia, I set up my window bird feeder again. In previous years, little bullfinches, blue tits and sparrows used to feed there. Now it seems that only feral pigeons are going crazy over it. I wouldn’t mind except that they have been climbing all over each other in a bid to get to the bird seed and I’m worried they’ll scratch my window with their beaks. Here is a 5 second sketch done with my SB pen looking out at a couple of pigeons on my window feeder.

This pigeon had that green and purple glittery colour around its throat and chest. In a bid to replicate the sparkle and inspired by the festive lights, I used some metallic watercolour in my painting. You can see the sparkle slightly in photo of my painting below. Also check out my Instagram to see the a short black and white video endeavouring to capture the sparkle more.

Feral Pigeon on Water of Leith, Watercolour on paper, copyright Kirralee Fisher 2025