Tenement Living #1

Many thanks to all who wished me a fab blipday yesterday. Very kind blip community. It even hit the spotlight page! Thanks to all.

Today was a long Monday with meetings for 12 hours followed by further talks over dinner.

Needless to say I didn't get home until quite late.

And then I have to climb all the stairs in the tenement right to the top flat.

Keeps me fit I suppose.

For those not from Edinburgh it is a city dominated by tenement flats (apartments). I have been told that it has a higher proportion of residents living in flats than any other city in the UK. This building has 4 floors but some even older properties have even more. They were the high rise buildings of their day.

This tenement dates from 1870 but many are considerably older. The little pipe you can see sticking out at the bottom of the picture is a gas pipe for lighting. Long since abandoned but these homes were built well before the widespread use of electricity (Edison's light bulb was first successfully tested in 1879, after this building was being lived in by many families). Not sure I would want to hang over the railing four floors up to light the gas lamp though.

Right down the bottom of the staircase you can see another great invention of the 19th Century, the bicycles for the people living in the tenement.

Hope everyone has had a good Monday and apologies for not getting by many of your journals this week as it's going to be very long days at work I'm afraid.

Will visit jounrals soon, I promise.