Friday is Walking Past Houses it Never Lived In
Excuse me for foisting a split infinitive on you this early in the morning, but that particular thought popped into my head last night, and it’s a curious one. I was walking home from Black Bo’s in the centre of town and it was pissing down with rain (I assume 2am, half cut, walking in the rain is usually when this sort of cod-profundity pops into people’s heads) and I walked past two or three flats Mrs. Toad and I nearly moved into, before buying the place we’re in now.
I think I’ve mentioned before that this house is the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my whole life. My previous record was three years when we lived in Singapore as kids, and three years in the same place in Glasgow, albeit split over two spells, but Mrs. Toad and I have been in the place we’re in now for as long as we’ve been married which is a little over four years now. This, in itself, is a slightly strange thought.
Anyhow, we bought a couple of years before the housing bubble really burst, and at that time in Edinburgh most things sold through a blind bidding process in which a house was listed at an ‘Offers Over’ price, everyone interested made a bid, and the highest bidder got the house. It was a massively frustrating process, not least because the actual Offers Over premium over and above the listed price seemed to be over twenty percent on everything we bid on, and we ended up making something like fifteen unsuccessful offers before we finally got the place we did – and even then we only got that because we whisked it out from under someone else’s nose.
Anyway, being in this house has allowed us to do so much that the other places would not, not least recording sessions in the living room which have, on a few occasions, included live drum kits. Also, as much as we have shaped the house very much to suit our own personalities, there are many ways it has shaped the way we live in return. The garden, the layout of the kitchen and dining room, the big, dark, North-facing living room… it’s always an oddly symbiotic relationship when you live somewhere, so it was strange to walk past two or three places we so easily (for want of another five or ten grand – so not that easily, but you get my point) might have lived.
It’s funny to walk past and look up and imagine that that might be your living room window, for example. And funny to think how shit some of the places look to me now, in comparison to where we are – or indeed how some of them still look really inviting, too. I would personally have chosen Leith, I think, if choosing an area – it’s scruffier and a bit more like what I am used to, I guess – but where we are is a lot swankier than that and I do wonder how that shapes things too. Funny.
So yes, de-lurking amnesty day as per usual. And I am going to play 5-a-sides this evening and then repair to the King’s Wark for scran. Splendid. Fuck the pissing rain, who cares!
1. What is your favourite antidote to torrential rain?
2. Name a good rain experience.
3. And a shit one.
4. Which place have you lived which least represented your personality?
5. Wettest you have ever been, not counting baths or swimming.
Fleetwood Mac – Farmer’s Daughter
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Everley Brothers – Be Bop a-Lula
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Taken By Trees – Watch the Waves
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
David Bowie – Oh, You Pretty Things
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
