A Finer Place

WOO!  YAY!  HOOPLA!  JOY!  HUZZAH!  GLEE!  CAKE FOR EVERYONE!  OTHER EXULTATIONS OF GENERAL HAPPINESS, RELIEF AND WELL-BEING!

Evening chums!  Apologies for the deafening silence around these parts, but we've been keeping off the dial-up until broadband shimmied back into our lives.  Because, yes, oh yes, oh thank chuffing Nora yes, we've moved to the new flat... and it is good.

Move Day itself, nearly three weeks ago, was hard work, but crucially we got pretty much everything shifted in one go rather than the drawn-out week of last time.  I got even more involved than previously, lurching from third floor to ground and back again and paying the achy price for it over the following four days, after which I swore never to live anywhere higher than the first floor of a building ever.  Still, the vast majority of work was done by the excellent Southside Movers, whose speed, effort and sheer hard graft meant that by early afternoon all our stuff was in New Flat.  They did an absolutely stirling job and for a much more reasonable price than the last lot, so a great big glowing Falling Sky recommendation sticker for them.  Thankful grins too to the much-maligned Edinburgh parking attendants who towed away some rich twat's car that hadn't been moved from our reserved section and was blocking the arrival of the removal van, apparently depositing said car in a particularly hard-to-find location - hopefully the fucking Forth.

Unpacking's been a damn sight faster than the last time and I think a certain amount of that is that we're both so genuinely happy to be here - there's not the slightest sense of looking back, except to flick V's.  Twenty days on, almost all of the boxes have been unpacked, with our pictures up on the walls, CDs properly shelved, blooms blooming.  The mood of the move felt noticeably more upbeat and positive - while moving from Dean Village felt almost like being uprooted against our wishes, this move was like a release, freeing ourselves from all that stupid fucking anxiety that The Arsehole Downstairs brought our way.  We couldn't wait to get out of there and into here - could you tell? - which made the move so much more bearable.  It was a thrill to actually close the door on the Old Flat and less than half an hour later step into the New Flat.

You'd think there'd be a danger of us over-hyping the place in our heads before getting in there, giving ourselves impossibly high expectations, but in truth there was only one real expectation we really needed fulfilling - a quiet night's sleep.  And, oh my chums, it delivers.  Both the Lass and I have slept so much better in the last three weeks than we have in months - seriously, I can feel the difference, people at work can see it.  Knowing there's no-one beneath us helps a lot on a psychological level, since there's absolutely ZERO chance of sound from below has made a lot of that bedtime anxiety that was fucking my noggin up vanish into blissful nothingness.  The neighbours to our side have a young sprog and are perfectly quiet after 9pm, while those above us seem to go to bed around 10pm - and in a tenement building like this, I don't think there's anyone who'd even consider having a party going past midnight, let alone 5am.  Every ounce of dread I used to feel when going to bed at the new flat has gone, leaving an almost palpable physical sense of relief.  I knew it'd make a difference but, my god, in retrospect the sleep disruption I got from downstairs was screwing me up even more than I realised.  If it's a regular problem for yourself, seriously, do something about it.

See, we're some way out from the city here, about half an hour's walk, and people here seem to be after as quiet a life as we are.  Everyone's living in tenement flats and seems to appreciate the limitations that brings, but also the benefits - lovely large shared gardens, for one.  There's young families, retired couples, professionals with amusingly tiny dogs that jiggle.  There's a lovely big park literally right outside the flat that's going to be wonderful to watch as the leaves change colour over Autumn.  There's the Union Canal on the other side of the park, one way leading into the city and popular with ducks, the other ending up at the Falkirk Wheel.  There's the local pub, a place we used to cross the city for Sunday brunch, now just a couple of minutes walk away.  I've already got into the habit of going in there every Friday afternoon and having a couple of pints of whatever guest ales they've got on tap that week - and how nice to have a real local pub at last.  There's having the Cineworld just 10 minutes away and on the walk home from work, making the Unlimited card worth getting again after canceling it just a few months back - in the last week I've seen more (non-festival) films than I have in months.

And there's Free Cat, a smug yappy sod of a mog (just look at that face!) who sits on top of our shed, stares indignantly into the main bedroom and demands entry until we relent.  Thus far he wanders around the flat, clearly disgruntled at the newness of everything - though he did enjoy an empty box - and then makes himself feel more at home by yoinking up his tail and squirting a little bit of l'eau de tabby somewhere.  Naturally he is promptly flung out, until the next day when the whole bizarre business happens again.  Still, the time between him coming in and his tail going seriously vertical is getting longer each day and hopefully the time will come when we won't have to shadow him around the flat, water spray in hand.  After all, yappy sod or not, it is genuinely nice to have a moggy around, particularly when he curls up on the cat blanket knitted by the Lass and purrs contentedly.  Ah well, there's always this solution.

So, after The Shire and The Village, welcome to what I'll be calling The Green.  We're going to love living here and you won't have to put up with post after post bemoaning a shit night's sleep, so it's a win-win all round!  I'm really looking forward to 'normal' blogging again, especially going over the mostly-excellent films I've had the pleasure of seeing lately (apart from Transformers, which was fucking weak).  There's new artwork to witter about, my new-found interest in quantum physics and Scots Law, the usual awesome space news stories yanked from elsewhere, how life with the Wii is going (clue: BRILL!!!) and a general all-round good vibe that's been sorely lacking of late.  Sorry that this blog's been a bit of a slog in the last few months, but we'll get things back on track soon enough, just you see.  Moving may have cost hundreds of pounds - hell, there's no 'may' about it! - but it was worth absolutely every penny.  Life just got a whole lot better.