High winds bring out the Ghost of John's Street !!!

A trifle dodgy outside for a few hours today , another "blawbag gale", rather than "a bit of a breeze" as one local farmer put it when I stopped to view the fallen tree at Pomathorn - interesting to see the phone cables exposed and in danger of being broken.

Gusts of 101 mph recorded in "the Meadows" in Edinburgh, and in the harbour at Ocean Terminal / Granton Harbour, the £300 million pound yacht Amaryllis (which I wrote about last week) had to be towed to safety after being caught in the high winds. I had thought it would have been away, however the crew and guests were here to celebrate New Year and leave on Saturday.

Signs of devastation everywhere, trees down, Tesco trolly shelters demolished, lorries overturned on the M8 ; M9 ; M74, Forth Road Bridge closed and so on, I even had my fence destroyed at home, and will need more than a few nails to fix the fencing at the Dolphin Inn.

Whilst "down the street" later on I popped into a couple of shops, Semi Chem, and Luscious (might even take up Melissa's offer for a deep tissue massage), the girls were expressing concerns about rather mysterious goings on - young Julie was being disturbed by the shop door constantly opening of its own accord; and one of the others said there was a "sulo bin" going up and down John Street on its own - this was very reminiscent to similar events which used to occur in John Street many years ago when I was a young Police officer on night shift - and even then some of the older Officers would tell me similar stories of strange events in the street - with the occasional reference to rumours of a ghost who roamed the street, going back to the late 1700's when a local had been killed by a tree falling in St Mungo's churchyard, only a couple of hundred yards away - just strange, a coincidence or what - especially when there is a plaque to the Carter's dog on the church wall !!!!

Finally, for the moment , forget all the pseudo sales taking place, the majority of which are just the usual con of overpricing for the requisite number of days, then bringing the price back down again - and as for Richard F Mackay 's so called sales - which seem to take place about fifty weeks of the year for assorted excuses - the sale to go to will be at The Standing order of one of the other JD Wetherspoon pubs who are selling two or three of their beers at 1992 prices (£1.29p) or coffee at 79p - might keep the big pole Dancer occupied for a bit.