Access Denied

I quite like a walk at lunchtime.

When the stresses and strains of being brilliant at everything get too much my favourite haunt is the Water of Leith, where you can enjoy trees and water with the city hidden in the background.

The best place to join this oasis is at the bottom of Bell’s Brae, but during the heavy rains last year a major land slip wrecked the path in the first section leading to the Gallery of Modern Art. I say wrecked, but it was fine. It was all broken up, and some of the big trees did seem a tad closer, but perfectly passable. Cyclists needed to dismount for that section, which was a total bonus for us pedestrians tired of ‘sharing’ a path with people who seemed determined to do everything they hate about motorists when they are on the road; loudly ringing their bell to signal their fury at slower moving traffic holding them up for as much as a nanosecond. So, it was all good. Except the council had to go all health and safety and block off the path.

For all of last year thus was no more that a mild inconvenience. They used a couple of those metal fence panels that link together when they want to block of sections of a pavement - like at New Year. The first person to come along would simply unlink them, push them aside, and free access would be restored until someone came down to put them together again.

Clearly they have tired of this game, and over Christmas someone has spent a lot of time creating a proper obstacle.

What rotters.