The Magic of Edinburgh Festival: The 2nd Sign

The second sign should surely have been the 25 minute trudge with all my luggage; arriving, blistered, at what I still believe to be an imported Soviet ‘apartment’; risking life and limb heaving my luggage up three flights of spiral concrete stairs and then hearing the company van pulling up outside. “Oh, I could have given you all a lift.” Really? Super.

I threw myself onto what can loosely be described as a sofa and quickly jumped back up when I saw the bird shit dripping down the sides of it.

Now, I don’t feel I’ve stressed quite enough the miserable state of our flat. The floors were crispy, the windows didn’t close, the kitchen was only half-built, there was no lounge, the bathroom had a bath, sink and toilet but no standing room (we measured, and the linen closet was honestly larger) and the only thing keeping that sink stuck to the wall was condensation.

I came back one evening to find the front door wide open, which started a small row over who had forgotten to close it. However, the row soon dissipated when we realised that the sentence, “Some one could have come in and stolen our…” could only be completed with, “…general air of depression.”

One Monday morning when leaving the flat, we noticed that the concrete stairs were covered with water. There was obviously a stair-cleaner at work here, but why, first thing on a monday morning, when residents are still half asleep and not paying attention, and the Scottish weather could turn blood to ice, would you pour gallons of icy water down spiral concrete stairs?? It was suggested that this was simply Scottish Natural Selection.

I concur.

Luckily, we were naturally selected and made it to the bottom. However, on arriving at the foot of the stairs, we bumped into a man, flanked by two youngsters, who proceeded to climb the icy death trap and let themselves into our flat.

Please, allow me to pause for effect.

It transpired that this was the landlord and he had been showing prospective tenants around the flat when we were out.

Without telling us.

When all our belongings were in there.

...!

However, again, it occurred to us that the wall of depression would hit them as soon as they stepped across the threshold and, therefore, probably wouldn't have the morale to steal my hairdryer.

So on we trudged.

To be continued...