Changing places

Our recent house move - our fourth in twenty years and in all ways the most traumatic - has left us shattered but confident that we chose the right place.

Shattered has been the word. The removal men never melded as a team, leaving behind them a trail of damage, losses, and breakages. Storage in July was a nightmare. Two fine Jack Firth paintings were damaged. Two beds have had to be replaced ad two more await replacement.  The Bosendorfer piano was noisily dropped on the doorstep  (by a firm, moreover, supposedly speclialising in pianos) and awaits professional inspection. The glass surface of a hand-made wrought-iron table, designed for my parents more than half a century ago, has been smashed.  Our array of art deco lamps are no longer functioning.

Though more may come to light, we are coping.  The mighty  Bosendorker has its window-space in the front room.The view of the stately Reid Memorial Church across the road gives us pleasure. Good double-glazing shields us from traffic noise. The handsome one-sided Victorian terrace rises gradually towards King’s Buildings.  The Avenue Store, mentioned by Kate Atkinson in recent novels, is an easy walk. There are buses to Morningside, Marchmont, and Cameron Toll.

It is very different from the isolation of Buckstone, above the gusty Fairmilehead snowline, where we lived happily for a while.  We are in town again.

Our kitchen has a snug corner - once a bed recess - for living and dining in.  The back garden, rising towards the red stonework of Ladysmith Road, has won the approval of the dogs.

So, despite our troubles, we are pleased. My desktop computer, whose main lead had vanished in transit, functions. My blog has resumed. My wife, too, is recovering.
26 August 2016