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December is upon us and Snowmaggedon is in full swing, but with our intrepid Council working around the clock to clear the roads there’s no reason to stay indoors!
 

Patricia Mackie was born and raised in Bellevue Terrace, attended James Gillespie’s when it was still an all-girls school (‘Jean Brodie and all that’), and left Edinburgh on getting married. She departed Scotland altogether in 1978 when she moved first to Canada, then the Caribbean, then Norfolk.

December's issue of the Spurtle will be printed tonight in time for delivery to local pubs, clubs, shops, newsagents, hairdressers, galleries, nightspots, dayspots, cafés, greengrocers, fishmongers, schools, surgeries and sundry street corners.

Fans of traditional Scottish fiddle music, and those interested in taking up the instrument in January 2011, are welcome to attend the Pilrig Fiddlers' End of Year Concert tomorrow (26 November).

Performances by all levels – from Absolute Beginners to Advanced Level 2 – will start at 4:00pm in Pilrig Church Hall (Pilrig Street).

Those attending can meet the group's guides and leaders – Eilidh Steel and Morag Brown – over mince pies, tea and coffee afterwards.

Two days after a Spurtle acquaintance completed her Christmas shopping, and one day after the first Yuletide decoration appeared on East Claremont Street, there can be no doubting the accuracy of Harrison's view.

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Broughton's thriving gallery scene continues to amaze, and at this time of year there is an almost bewildering variety of exhibitions and one-off events to tempt the visitor. Here we offer an incomplete summary of what's on offer, and urge readers to enjoy taking the plunge for themselves. (For a complete list, see Arts and Entertainment in the Directory.)

Mr P. Sharma seeks permission to convert 4 self-contained flats at Grade A-listed 12 York Place into 12 en suite hotel bedrooms (Ref. 10/03230/LBC). They would be serviced from the adjacent Ballantrae Hotel at 8 York Place.

Villeneuve Wines of Broughton Street held its (arguably) annual Wine Tasting on 19 November.

Around 170 people attended in Lyon & Turnbull's spacious premises on Broughton Place for five hours' gruelling concentration on the arts of sniffing, sipping, rolling, tasting, swallowing and spitting. Not necessarily in that order. Some 84 wines were sampled in the presence of a plethora (not the easiest word to say by the evening's close) of restaurateurs, winemakers, exporters and representatives.

At a time of swingeing cuts in public funding, the role of 'third-sector' organisations is likely to grow greater than ever. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is responding with a concerted push to let people know about its mission: to support people to take voluntary action to help themselves and others and to bring about social change.

Marianne Wheelaghan is a typically cosmopolitan Broughton resident. Edinburgh through and through, she was born to a Leith father and  German mother, grew up in Pilrig Street and attended Broughton Primary School, as would her children years later. She remembers one teacher in particular – Miss Klein – a strict but fair Canadian woman who encouraged her first efforts at fiction.