Da hood

Take a look, dear reader, at The Blog Of Rand and his post, Good Things About Saint Paul. Saint Paul is the capital city of Minnesota and Lexington-Hamline is a neighbo(u)rhood within it...

We don't use the expression neighbo(u)rhood here in Her Britannic Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but if we did, mine would be that which lies between Fairmilehead and Morningside.

I fashion my future on films in space.

I find my home in the midst of a sprawling estate, yes, in-between Morningside and Fairmilehead and, politically speaking, right on the edge of the city of Edinburgh. It has a lot of good things going for it, and a few bad. I'm a half empty sort of person, as opposed to half full, so will start with the bad first:

We have a Tory MSP.
Children live here.
Phyllis and I are the only gays on the scheme (apart from a couple of mardy dykes).

The good:

Although we live in a city, the south side is very green. Just across from my street is a wood, which leads on to a park and green fields.



A ten minute walk from my house will bring you, dear reader, to a wee parade of shops. Nothing exciting, but if you need a pint of milk, a loaf, a perm, a bottle of gin, a bridie, a newspaper, some Preparation H, a lawyer or to post a parcel, you're made!



Can you see me at the cash machine, dear reader?

The Post Office used to double as a green grocer and was called Roots 'n' Fruits. Sadly, it's now a hardware store. The roots are gone as well as the fruit who worked on the till.



Outwith my neighbo(u)rhood, and a further ten minute walk from the parade of shops, is Morningside. The most fabulous thing about this part of town is not the fact that J K Rowling is a resident, but that they have a Waitrose! I adore this shop.



Can you see me shopping, dear reader? Can you see my bald patch?



Another good thing about living here is the fact that we're only a ten minute car journey from IKEA. If you want to read about the stresses and strains of shopping in said store, click here. It's fabulous.



Finally, the most fabulous thing about living in this delicious district is its proximity to the city centre. Just along from the parade of shops, as mentioned earlier, is a bus stop. A number 11 comes along every ten minutes and will take you, dear reader, into the city centre within twenty minutes.



I was there yesterday, en route to Glasgow. The Edinburgh cow parade is still going strong.



I hadn't been to Glasgow in a while, so thought it was time I went. The train journey isn't bad, but what a kerfuffle I had with getting a ticket! I used the automated machine to obtain the bloody thing, but it only punched out my outward bound leg! The screen instructed me to contact the ticket office, which I did. After queuing for fifteen minutes, the clerk told me I had to go to the Scotrail office and not the general ticket office, which I did. The girl there told me to contact a member of the barrier staff, which I did. He told me I had to go to the station manager's office, which I did. He told me I had to go back to the barrier staff and ask for the chief inspector, which I did. Yay! Result! He wrote the whole sorry tale on the back of my ticket (apart from my pillar to post experience) and off I went. Why couldn't any of the other buffoons do that? I'll tell you why, because they're a pack of shunts.



I had a fine time in Glasgow, taking a ride on their subway/underground system, a walk along the Clyde and visiting a few shops, museums and galleries. I did intend on going to Glasgow Cathedral, but time was short, so I came home.

On my return, I found Phyllis, tired, had hardly eaten anything and lying on the sofa. We don't have a davenport. He'd had a bagel with jam on, but I went into the kitchen and toasted another couple. He had cheese on his and I had baked beans. A slob's tea. We both had a yoghurt after that (health, health, health, sweetie!) and then I opened a box of Lindt Classic Assortment. Definitely not a slob's choice of choccies. I'm not really a slob, dear reader, and furthermore, I'm also not a snob. I eat Lindt because they're fabulous. Cadbury's is wank. And it gives you salmonella.