LD 142. Measuring up

I walked down to the Parliament just before 8.00 this morning through streets still sodden from torrential rain dumped by the extraordinary thunderstorms which had rolled on through the night.

The last time I can recall that intensity of lightening and thunder in Edinburgh was in 1976 or 77 , when I shared a flat in Oxford St in Newington with my much missed long dead friend & best man David Graham. I recall walking up Dalkeith Rd in such a storm then but never since.

It was still echoing round at 6.00am when the thick mist was beginning to lift but places like Fife and - very tragically - Aberdeenshire were only then in the middle of the worst of it.

Within a couple of hours the sun was breaking out at Holyrood and early morning reporters were beginning to file their stories , including those who had to stand on boxes to face the cameras....