To believe that a very high % of mumsnetters are Scottish

[greedygal]

I get this impression and have no idea why - is this my imagination or is this the case?

Where are you originally from?

I am thoroughly English.

I've never been to Dundee.

Dont start bad mouthing Glasgow now or I'll have to knock some sense intae ye! not really only joking but my inner Glaswegian sometimes gets unleashed !

Me neither

"I've been to Paradise, but I've never been to Dundee".

Katiekaye, I used to work in that hotel! Not when Chic Murray owned it, the guy I worked for told me he used it own it. Can't remember if it's a private house now or became part of the youth hostel (maybe that's not there either now and am dating myself - many moons since walked down that street). Amazing the difference in the price of the rooms during and outside the festival.

I heard the expression "the Blackhall Bubble" - apparently the residents love the area so much that unabashed smugness is part of the package!

I think Edinburgh's hills help create a sense of space. It's easier to create an image of the town when you've seen it spread out around you, at least if it's small enough to see the city limits.

My whole image of Edinburgh when I was a student was of Newington and I remember going to Fountainbridge one day (before they started knocking stuff down). I remember thinking how dark and threatening it was an scuttled back to studentville. I walk that way to work everyday now and think how ridiculous that was.

I'm still on a train. I should be reading a book although in my defence when we stopped at York it was like The Whitsun Weddings, piles of people looking as if they were on their way to weddings got on.

Anybody checking what's going on in the rest of the site behind our backs?

Small world, Eddie! it was one of the hang-outs when I was at school. Had amazing wallpaper in the small back bar and a minah bird. very eccentric.

Edinburgh has changed so much during my lifetime, but I'm glad we don't have a motorway through the city like Glasgow. it was proposed, but vetoed. The western approach is about as close as it gets.

Dad was briefly stationed in Glasgow in WWII (Polish Army) and said one of the warmest welcomes they got were from the people of the Gorbals, who despite having almost nothing, really took these young men far away from home to their hearts and put on wee shows and teas for them. The least welcoming place he was in was Thurso, which he thought was the end of the earth. Mind you, that was after WWII, when all hope of returning home had vanished.

Scottish living in England here, with a cut-glass English accent when I'm in England and a clear Edinburgh accent when I'm in Scotland. (Thanks to English school bullies)

I remember Newington before it was studentville...

MorrisZapp and Fanjo, don't take it to heart. You seem really nice!

It's just my experience of Morningsiders is that they like to tell you they're doing rather well. And tell you again. And tell you a third time, in case it hadn't quite sunk in.

They also pull on the judgy pants and act shocked if you live anywhere else than Morningside. I mean, why would you want to? And how can you bear...oh it's not very PC to say this nowadays but....:(

(Now this is unreasoning prejudice, but I loathe all the twee tiny overpriced shops where you can buy a baby dress that'll be grown out of in the blink of an eye or half a weird vegetable from Azerbaijan which is all the rage for £££ more than I ever spend on anything I own or eat. I have been known to walk past those shops muttering "come the revolution" and entertain wild fantasies of what, in that blissful time, the shops of Morningside will become. Granted, I have issues...)

Ah, I'm in Edinburgh, as well. In a posh bit. There's a Waithrose round the corner

However, I used to live on the Royal Mile and loved it. It was just too busy, and we had no garden, so moved after we had ds. Now hus school is round the corner, as well. So is Fettes, should we win the lottery

Me too, Fanjo! Old enough to remember Jenner's tea room with the wee round tables and waitresses in black and white uniforms. And Forsyths and PTs and Goldbergs. Back in the days when you had to put on your best coat and shoes to go "up town" - always a special treat, despite the fact I went to school in the Grange when I was little and travelled by myself from the age of 7 - actually going into the centre of town was a rare event.

In freshers week at university, a girl introduced me to someone she'd met earlier and made a reference to him having been at private school. Where I grew up only landed gentry levels of poshness went to private school, probably because there were very few nearby and it would have meant boarding. Growing up I knew absolutely no-one privately educated as they just weren't around. I remember thinking how "normal" this guy was and saying to him "Really? But you're just like me" .

The people I work with who send their kids to fee paying schools really aren't the type to develop precious darlings and I detect no snobbery at all towards my state school chat. There does seem to be a bit of a tradition of sending generations to the same school in some families but that must be the same everywhere.

Aww, only a few morningsiders are like that though shockingly. And not one but two Gruffalo Shops (as I call them) has closed it's doors this month. We never shopped in them either!

Now come along, best foot forward. Come and take your kids to the Dominion cinema and buy some snacks in Markses to eat at the brilliant swing park. Then pootle through the awesome and numerous charity shops and get a chippy tea before catching a handy and v regular bus back to your bit.

You winnae regret it!

Midlothian here. I'm from the Weeg originally and still have a soft spot for it. Came to uni in Edinburgh, met DH and moved out of the big city when we had Ds1. Love it here.

I used to work in the supermarket in Morningside.

Some of them are vile.

What's a Gruffalo shop?

I love the fact people live in the city centre in Edinburgh. My first flat was in Grindlay Street behind the castle and next door to the Usher Hall.

I think both Gorgie and Leith have improved a lot in recent years.

You can tell it's a posh area, what with a Waitrose and a substantial size food M&S practically across the road from each other.

Ah, RIP Goldbergs - the big one in Glasgow was a lovely shop. I can't remember the name of the uber trendy (to me) boutique on the ground floor? It was dark-lit and even smelled like the 80s.

Gruffalo shop whit

Edinburgh girl here too!!

I lived in Royal Mile Mansions (it's just some flats, actually). I think it used to be a department store. Some of the flats were weird shapes, but loved gaving the lifts and the concierge.

Never been to Dundee? cripes. I don't live there but went to uni and have always worked there. Hope you'll come up when the new waterfront with V&A etc is done.
at Gruffalo shops.

Shocking, about 10 years ago were you in a grocery shop in Bruntsfield telling the man behind the counter how terrible the area was now, all the proper shops closing down and "another bloody cafe opening". The woman lived there right enough and was going to move away because of it.

I lived in Bruntsfield for a while and when I first moved there there was only Montpeliers if you wanted to go "posh" and our treat was banoffee pie at the "grand caftiere" (though I didn't know Morningside past the Safeway then). Now there's over 50 places to get a cup of coffee between the bottom of Morningside Road and Bruntsfield Links and the "grand cafetiere" is now the "cafe grande" but at least the banoffee pie is just the same!

Aww gawd bless goldbergs we used the one In falkirk and went to Glasgow at christmas for christmas clothes big family day out aunties nan various cousins it was great we would get off the train and march down to goldbergs cos they took provy cheques