Prue Leith

Diary – 13 October 2016

Also in Prue Leith’s Diary: joining one of Edinburgh’s great dynasties and ordering my own tartan

issue 15 October 2016

To Edinburgh to get married, but first my toyboy groom John Playfair (he’s a mere 69) shows me the city of his birth, which is peppered with his kinsman William Playfair’s neoclassical buildings. Outside the Chambers Museum there is a new, magnificent statue of him by Stoddard. We climb Calton Hill to admire the monument to another Playfair, this time the mathematician and astronomer John, and also his observatory, both built by W.H. Playfair. I’m now a bit daunted at joining the Playfair clan. Next day at sunset we drive as high as we can along Salisbury Crags and up Arthur’s Seat. It seems feeble not to climb the last bit. So up we go, me in high heels. It’s easier uphill than you’d think as the heels keep your feet horizontal but coming down they exaggerate the pitch and it’s impossible. I descend in socks.

The day of our nuptials is, like the whole week, sunny and clear.

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