I Measure Out My Life In Different Rooms

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Today was exciting!!

Not for me. I was at fecking work.

But for Caro, it was EXCITING. She sent me texts all day saying the deal had been completed, the loan had come through and that she was off to pick up the keys to our new house. 

So, dear friends, welcome to our final week-and-a-bit at Aurora Terrace. If you are anything like me, you can measure out your life in addresses. 

You know what I mean? When someone asks you when John Lennon got shot or when the Berlin Wall fell, you say, "Hmmm... well I was in that crappy flat at the time then, so it must have been...."

Consequently, I have been going through a list of my addresses in my head. It is probably a boring list to the rest of you, but here are my recollections...

June 2015
47 Raeburn Place - Was our crappy little flat in Stockbridge, but I actually loved my time there. I just loved that neighbourhood. Plus, our landlady was such a lovely woman who just wanted us to be happy and despite the pokiness of the place it was full of good vibes and happiness and cats. 

When we first saw the flat, my friend "Mad" Maz was living in it. She was lovely and she had the nicest doggie named Durley who brought us toys so we could play with him. "I'm SO pleased he likes you!" she told us. "If he doesn't like people, he farts, so I have to put non-dog people by the window."

The place seemed nice, though small. And it was made even smaller when we moved in, to find that Nice Landlady had FILLED it with crappy old furniture. I think she thought she was being nice. But that bloody sideboard was an EYESORE. If you flick back in blip, you can see that it appears a lot because it was hard to avoid.

December 2006
42 Shore - Was the first place me and Caro bought together, and the first place we could have cats. I remember we bought it because we had both created spreadsheets of property in Edinburgh, and when we MERGED them, this was the only address we had both listed. 

In fact, I remember the first time I ever visited - going down there on the 22 on a beautiful day and seeing the blue Water of Leith opening up as the bus rounded the corner. I just knew I wanted to live there.

For that reason I have good memories, but on the downside the financial meltdown happened when we were there and it always felt like a financial albatross as it abruptly SLUMPED in value, like 5 minutes after we bought it.

Lisa used to love coming to stay with us there, for the passive-aggressive notes left on the communal notice board in the lobby. "PLEASE could you dispose of cigarettes TIDILY. THANK YOU (smiley face)" that sort of thing.

One time someone dropped a pie in the lobby and then trampled it into the carpet. A note appeared: "PLEASE could you clean up your pie. It is DISGUSTING (frowny face)". 

We were very amused by the eff-off-ed-ness of the response. "It was me. I did it. I don't care. You clean it."

I mean, clearly the response-writer was a dick, but at least honest about his dickery.

September 2004
Brunswick Terrace - I have really happy memories of this flat. It was nice and big inside with a huge kitchen. Or, in other words, we had a lot of parties. I shall post some extras so Fat Pete and I can look back at ourselves in younger, prettier, days.

This was also the place where the ceiling fell in. Caro was watching "The Bone Collector" on telly one night when suddenly there was a massive CRASH and she just about shit her pants. I went to the kitchen to investigate, and emerged, seconds later, looking like a MIME. 

January 2002
161 Rose Street - Was a weird flat with our very posh, aristocratic landlady, Lady Joan Blake of Northumberland. She was actually lovely and swore like a bastard. She also said she had met the NZ ambassador and wondered if Caro knew him? 

It was pretty small with no shower, but Feefs lived with us there and so I have very happy memories of watching horror movies with Feefs and also Feefs and Caro dancing around to 90's hip-hop on MTV. It was one of those flats you knew you would never stay in very long though. As you might imagine, the noise from the bars was never ending and there were always hen parties on the street outside our front door. 

Plus, someone left a turd in the stairwell. So, clearly time to move.

April 2000
Hanover Street - The best party flat EVER! We had a huge dancefloor living room. Bokhara used to stay there with us during the week. He taught me loads of recipes and amused Caro with his Mike Reid impression while watching "EastEnders". 

Also it was just above the Turkish restaurant "Nargile" (now "Yeni") so it was hard to come home without stopping in there first for take out.

December 1998
78 Montrose Terrace - This was the place I moved into after me and Soozle split. I remember she helped me move, and took me to the big Sainsbury for supplies before leaving me at the front door (whereupon she burst into tears, and I had to invite her in to calm down). 

So it was kind of an emotional flat. A lot of ups and downs.

This was also the flat that came with cats! Pickett the Landlady couldn't take her cats with her when she moved in with her fiance. This was because Fiance had woken up to find Dusty the Cat drinking out of his water glass and decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. 

I loved both Dusty and her brother Ripley. They were adorable little cats. Especially Dusty who was a bit useless and clumsy and didn't know how to cat. She was also obsessed with chocolate. Not to eat it, she just loved the smell. I found this out on night one because I left a (wrapped) Mars Bar out and was awoken at 3am by - crinkle, crinkle "meow", crinkle crinkle "meow". When I investigated, I found she had also ripped open a packet of Maltesers. I was finding the bloody things for WEEKS after.

A few months later I met Caro and it turned into a semi-hostel for all the Kiwis, Aussies and Americans who came to visit. It wasn't huge, but we certainly did manage to pack a lot of overnight guests into our living room. Also, it brought Pickett The Landlady into my life and for that I shall always be grateful.

Looking back on that time, it is hard to believe how quickly things turned around for me. I loved my time in that flat.

Spring 1997
Barnton Park View - The first place I ever bought! It was actually a lovely house and way too big for Soozle and me, but I never really got to enjoy it on account of marriage meltdown debacle trauma.

June 1994 
12a Danube Street - My first Edinburgh address. It was REALLY bloody cheap. And cold. And dark. But it was near the Water of Leith so I used to go for walks there all the time. It felt very strange living just downstairs from the really RICH people though. And every time I took a taxi there I'd get stories about the infamous Danube Street brothel.

January 1993
Scholes Park Road, Scarborough - Me and Soozle lived her for 18 months after I took redundancy from BAe. It was like a little holiday from life. I paid no rent as it was her dad's flat. There were a lot of nice walks along the sea there, but as we were just down the coast from a sewage treatment plant, you knew about it if the wind was blowing the wrong direction. 

Spring 1991 
Pine Road, Bristol. This was the house with all the cats, which I believe I have spoken of previously.

March 1990
Rockstowes Way, Bristol. And this was the house with the foxes. 

August 1987
69 The Glade, Scarborough. I moved in here with Soozle after a terrific fight with my family. My main memories of this place are holing up and hiding, and working my way through the entire contents of the local video library to try and take my mind off things.

November 1985
Westbourne Grove, Scarborough - This was the last address I lived at with my family. We had to move here after my parents got divorced and so really my memories of this place are pretty bleak. Just a lot of anger and bitterness in that house, at that time. 

The good news is that it was all repaired. My parents got back together and my dad fixed the place up, which is actually very metaphorical of him if you think about it. But sadly, I was long gone by then.

Spring 1978
6 Raincliffe Crescent - This was a lovely house and mainly where I remember growing up with cats. But my parents did that weird parent thing where they became mates with the people they bought the house from. Did you parents do that too? Just make friends with effing randoms? I remember the people who sold it to them would come round all the time for drinks. It was like, "We too, are in our thirties with children. We will be mates and talk endlessly about house prices." 

Parents are WEIRD, man.

My sister's bedroom was on the ground floor. As a teenager, she would sneak out of her window and go on midnight drives with blokes. Until my dad caught some blokes climbing into her window one night and obviously, that was the end of that. 

As for me. My bedroom had a little door in the wall. Just enough to get through and into the attic. My horror-movie-mind imagined all sorts of things coming through that door on windy evenings when the house would creak and the little door would bang against the back of the wardrobe. Naturally, I kept a torch by the bed.

April 1972
13 Wreyfield Drive - My first ever conscious memory is of moving to this place. I think they must have allowed me to sit up at the front of the moving van, so I was transfixed by the white road lines as they moved and disappeared under the front of the van. Or at least, I think I was. It is possible that my subconscious has constructed that memory out of something a lot more vague. 

This was such a 1970's house! We had fluffy orange curtains and chocolate brown carpet with orange swirls. We also had a PURPLE kitchen with SILVER tiles. And a spectacular Xmas tree which was white and silver and plastic.

My mum was quite artistic and did all the painting herself (magnolia with a chocolate brown feature wall in the living room). She also covered the mantel with bronze wallpaper to make it pop. 

(As an aside, Caro does this sort of thing too. Nothing weird or Freudian or disturbing about that. Moving on.)

My mum used to decorate all of our childhood bedroom walls with paintings she did of Walt Disney or Merry Melodies or other cartoons. She'd paint them in the evenings on polystyrene, and then they would put them up in Tesco's, where she worked. (Copyright not an issue back in the day, I suppose). But when Tesco were done with them, we would have them. I didn't realise how lucky I was. I thought all mums worked as artists as Tesco. 

June 1969
11 Milton Avenue - I have no memory of this place. Well, maybe if I try I can recall the smell of a paraffin heater and the sound of slippers on carpet. But my parents claimed it was haunted. Seriously. There was a room that neither of them liked to be in at night. 

My mum was in there late one evening decorating and just felt a sense of absolute dread so had to clear out. Then my dad came in one evening after the night shift and didn't want to wake my mum so slept in there. Apparently he lasted all of ten minutes before scuttling out of there in state of complete terror. Neither of them ever saw anything but just said it felt uncomfortable to be in there. Also, they didn't speak about it until years later when they suddenly realised they had exactly the same experience. (JARRING CHORD). 

Apparently mum exercised her artistic bent here too. She told us how she had picked gravel off the side of the garage and stuck it to the wall in my sister's nursery to make a gravel path. Then she painted elves going along the path into a forest. It took her ages.

And Tups saw it for the first time and screamed and screamed and SCREAMED. So it had to come back down again.

Feburary 2020
And now a new home to add to that list. Let us hope for all of the good things. For dancing to MTV. for Aussies pitching up and sleeping in the living room. For cats and recipes and walks by the sea and people who swear like bastards and laughter and guests.

And let us hope for no haunted rooms, no bitterness, no anger, no scary elves and no orange fluffy curtains. Definitely no effing fluffy curtains.

S.

Extras - I never normally do these, so thought I'd go mad with them today. They are:

- Me, washing up in the crappy old Shore kitchen, before it was replaced.
- Punky - he liked to go out of the window to sit and sniff the air, but after the incident where he got a fright and shot off, we started to employ the leash.
- E's picture of our Shore flat in the early 90's.
- Brunswick Street, Xmas 2004. I can remember the names of about half of these people.
- Mom, holding forth about something RUDE, as she was wont to do. While Pop looks on, horrified.
- Me in the Brunswick Terrace years. Looking smug about something.
- Two very handsome gentlemen.
- Caro, eating her Xmas dinner in the window, because guests.
- Rose Street - Feefs is w@nkered. Caro is very patient.
- Gosh, what a good-looking young couple.
- Not a great picture of Caro, but you get the idea.
- Our Rose Street toilet. The "Thunderbox". Caro decorated with the sleaziest postcards she could find.
- Bokhara in contemplative mood, on our final day in Hanover Street together.
- Me, being an absolute @rsehole.
- Soozle, being upstaged by Caro.
- Caro, showing off her "Spice Girl" shoes in Hanover Street.
- Abbeyhill and Caro is clearly having a "morning after" moment.
- New Year's Day 2000. We had to have our party the day after Hogmanay because Davey the Fireman was working that day.
- Pickett's Red Bedroom. She said the first thing she did when she got her own place was to paint the bedroom red, get long velvet curtains and a chaise longue, plus golden cherubs for the walls. 
- Caro and Dusty the Cat.