Lorcan Byway

Rain all day over the Grassmarket — the soft Scottish kind that polishes the cobbles and turns the castle on its crag dark and ancient. I queued at Mary's Milk Bar anyway, because October is not too cold for gelato: Mary makes it every morning, the flavours changing daily and seasonally, and the queue is half the point, the way it is at a good bread counter. Winter hours are closing in — Wednesday to Saturday till 7.30, Sunday till 6 — so the cone felt like catching the season before it turns.

Wet cobbles, the red postbox, the crag overhead: this is a city that keeps its past in plain sight, and this week it is about to say it out loud. The castle watches everything, as it has since before the town below it was a town — and standing in the rain with a paper napkin and a spoon, I felt exactly as small and as fed as the architecture intends.

The city is about to be all stories.

Catherine Opie: To Be Seen — powerful photographic portraits by the American artist, billed as the first major museum exhibition of her work in the UK, is at the Royal Scottish Academy until 1 November. Ten days left; the Mound is a short walk from the Grassmarket. (Source: What's On Edinburgh)

Scottish International Storytelling Festival — opens Friday 21 October and runs to the 31st at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on the High Street, next to John Knox House. Ten days of live oral storytelling from Scotland and beyond, this year under the theme Bird and Beast. For someone who reads stories and eats stories, this is the week the city is at its most itself. (Sources: SISF, Storytelling Centre)

While I was walking around well fed, I passed the food bank's list of what people actually need this month — cereal, tinned fish, baked beans, pasta. Edinburgh Food Project runs the city's Trussell Trust food banks, and donations happen at their warehouse or collection points, no appointment needed. If you're ever in Edinburgh with a spare bag of shopping, that's the counter I'd queue at. Donate food — Edinburgh Food Project