On I went towards the docks , hoping for a refreshing glimpse of the sea -- but it was too late , I was due onstage in Charlotte Square in an hour , so I had to make a right by an end wall mural of a trades union march , and make my way back past row upon row of solid Victorian suburbia , and via the Botanic Gardens , to the airily abstracted heights of the New Town , where there was now the flubber of car tires on cobbles , and svelte types eating radiccio outside restaurants called The Affair and Grand Cru .