Usually I’d be listening to a podcast, something political or satirical or about old fart pop stars, but my headphones are out of charge and rude not to chat, isn’t it?

Talking of old fart pop stars, see those blokes waiting for an Uber outside Leith Depot? They were in a moderately successful band but not so moderately successful as to own a chocolate brown Rolls Royce or one of those mansions in LA with a guitar-shaped swimming pool. The day their record contract was about to expire they were signing copies of their second album in a record shop on Buchanan Street without knowing one of them would be signing on the dole two hours later. That’s entertainment, kids.

And that young women clearing away the outdoor tables? She’s the older sister of a guy in our middle one’s year who scored almost as many goals for Leith Athletic as Leigh Griffiths. Insert the word disgraced here at your own discretion. Not that morality ends when you step on or off a football pitch of course. What I will say is that LG was one of the most intelligent footballers I’ve watched, in the sense of his reading of the game and knowing how to exploit space in the final third. Up there with Larsson and Ronaldinho.

But I ramble. Keep me right, won’t you? We’re passing on the other side of the Walk from Robbie’s, my local when I moved to Edinburgh. This was before all the screens for live sport and it was the last boozer in which I was asked my age, back when John Major was PM and the Scottish Parliament merely a glint in the eye of Donald Dewar.

Not that the Walk’s all about pubs. There are all the artisan bakeries at the Foot and oh how I love those gluten-free cakes from Krema Bakehouse. And don’t forget the guy in Argonaut bookshop who sounds unnervingly like a politician I worked with and inadvertently promoted to First Minister by failing to be clear enough in the punctuation and line breaks in a speech. The actual First Minister, at that time being Big Eck, certainly savoured the comic effect. This is good therapy, by the way, I’m grateful.

And ignore my loose topography – the rest is geography, you might say – but we’re crossing McDonald Road and did you know that further along, on the site where John Lewis sits, used to be an overgrown area that James Boswell would visit with ladies of the night? Let’s turn right here, I know a shortcut that takes us past my old doctor’s and the Islamic Centre and down to the New Town. Sorry, I do walk a bit fast. Take a breather while I say hello to this beautiful dog, a Siberian reindeer herder, who sometimes dozes on its owner’s step. Ready to go again? Another pooch.

Here’s the Wally Dug and it may seem I’m obsessed with pubs but I’m not particularly a fan of this one; if only because of memories of the sticky carpet and braying of the clientele the few times I ventured down its steps during the 90s. And when I lived around the corner I had to put up with renditions of Jerusalem by pished Home County types. Listen, I love William Blake as much as the next quasi-mystical faux-bohemian would-be aesthete but not courtesy of honking barbarians in the early hours on a school night, yeah.

Never mind that though.

I spy the red door of Stevenson House and have a hunch Mr Hyde will soon be cast back into the shadows in favour of Dr Jekyll. We’re 10 minutes from Torpichen Street and my shift starts at quarter to one this morning. That’s right, a bit confusing this, given we began our promenade at the fag end of Saturday night and end it with the I’ll-put-the-kettle-on vibe of early Sunday morning.

But I buzz the door twice, such is the ritual, and swipe the security scanner. I enter the duty room and blether with colleagues. I empty my pockets of keys and wallet and log on. I click on available and wait for three rings of the phone which is no longer a phone but why quibble eh.

I channel my best late-night DJ voice and I say five words: Samaritans, can I help you?

Rodger Evans