Problems in the city?!!!

For those of you who follow our Blips regularly; you will know that we have homes in St Ives, Cornwall, and Edinburgh. Both of our homes are very, very, lovely. The problem is............... they're a long way apart.

After living in Cornwall for more than 20 years; in 2019, my human decided to make our Edinburgh home, our permanent home. And then a year later, 'lock down' happened and her whole perspective on life as we knew it changed completely. My human is still suffering from the effects of lock down in a city. Life is never, ever, going to go back to how it was before lock down.

In 2019, Ann was pretty sure that she'd made the correct 'lifestyle' choice to relocate back to a city. At this point she was approaching her 60th birthday, she had loads of friends in Edinburgh, she had a very flexible well paid job as a 'Meet & Greeter', she was a member of a fitness club that she went to at least 5 times a week......................... And, she'd managed to register with an NHS doctor/dentist, etc and she'd registered me with a vet who was just round the corner.

5 years ago our plan was to keep our St Ives home as a second home (& rent it out as a holiday let) and then sell it when we both got too old and decrepit to walk up the hills there.

…...........And then lock down happened?!!......................................

Overnight, she no longer had a job as a self employed 'Meet & Greeter', she was no longer allowed to go to her Fitness Club, she couldn't rent out our home in Cornwall (or even go there herself) and as a single person, for 3 months, she wasn't allowed any human interaction at all. Very difficult to believe that was how life was back then, but it was just how it was...................... An unknown virus attacking the world and no-one knew how to deal with it?!

Fast forward 4 years........................... and my human really wishes that she'd just broken all the rules and gone down to our home in St Ives. #Retrospectisagreatthing

Until lockdown, my human never realised how different life in a city was, to living in a rural location. Until lockdown, my human didn't even consider St Ives to be a 'rural location'. To her it was just a small town in the Southwest.

....................We've been on a lot of big long walks in the last couple of weeks that have taken us through a lot of very built up areas within Edinburgh. Edinburgh has a population of 526,470. We checked on Google. We've walked through areas that we didn't even know existed. We've walked through areas where we've been scared and where the amount of rubbish on the streets has been absolutely appalling. We've walked through areas where Ann has actually been worried that we could have been attacked/robbed/mugged/raped. BUT....................... we've explored the city.

The great thing about my human owning me is................... we just walk and walk and walk and walk.

BUT........................ we labelled this BLIP,  'Problems in the City', and unfortunately most of Ann's 'city friends' seem to have problems which have emerged since lockdown. They either have physical problems or mental health issues which prevent them from doing anything other than 'eating and drinking'. #myhumanloveseatinganddrinking

Our plan is to go back down to St Ives at the end of April for 5/6 months. I can have lots of lovely walks on the beach and my human can do sea swimming, Zumba, walks with friends, and hopefully get a job for about 20 hours a week, to be able to supply me with all the treats that I've become used to.

#watchthisspace

PS – Went on an 8 mile walk this morning. This is a photo of me sitting under the bridge at Colinton Village near the Waters of Leith.