I happened to pass through Roseburn today on the way back from Corstorphine, having come along the pleasant Carrick Knowe tram side path. The devastation wrought by the flood prevention works is really dreadful: all those mature trees cut down. That whole area will take decades to recover, it looks incredibly bleak. I thought the new wisdom was that trees actually help prevent floods, and building big walls just speeds rivers up, passing the problem along downstream? Anyway, I'm sure the engineers know what they're doing with the millions of our cash...
I bypassed the Roseburn shops by continuing in the park, much more pleasant than mixing it with Saturday afternoon traffic. It continued to be pretty pleasant until the Roseburn Street/Russell Road junction, which has to be one of the most cack handed bits of shared use infrastructure in Edinburgh. It's of course better than mixing it with rat running traffic, but I'd forgotten how pointless it feels to turn that corner on the shared use only to have to rejoin the carriageway shortly afterwards. Rather than experience Haymarket Yards I joined the NEPN via that zig-zag ramp, which is steeper than I remembered.
Anyway thank goodness for the NEPN, it makes my journeys twixt east and west so much more enjoyable. Dog walkers, folk out for a stroll, runners, etc. are all frankly much more agreeable to deal with than aggressive drivers.
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