There Goes the Neighborhood

Well, shoot.

There goes the neighborhood.

We received a letter about three months ago from the contracting company, letting us (and presumably the owners of the flat) know that they had bought the property across the street from the flat and were going to be tearing down a derelict bowling alley and converting the space to more parking spaces — and flats.

More flats? We thought. Seriously? Where? But, like the tendency in certain American cities to build sprawling, pastel McMansions RIGHT NEXT TO THE FREEWAY ON-RAMP, Glaswegians seem to have no problem building a fifteen story block of flats… fifty feet away from another fifteen story block of flats.

Undoubtedly when the builders are finished, this will be a little neighborhood in and of itself. There will be a post office and a little convenience store, and it will be seen as a good place to live by those who like urban development. If everyone is quite lucky, they may plant some trees and have a coffee shop, and no one will mind that the view of the sky is obstructed at “Skypark.”

By then, we’ll be long gone.

This has been the daily schedule for the last five days:

• 2 a.m. — an engine begins to buzz. It’s a generator, and it goes on loudly, for no reason that we can tell. We toss and turn.

• Seven a.m. — guys with hard hats and yellow vests arrive on-site and congregate, pacing, spitting, and smoking. T. pulls down the blinds and does her workout. She quickly opens the ‘lounge’ (aka “living room”) windows after, because…
• 8 a.m. — the noise of screeching metallic destruction comes in via any open window — along with a sifting of fine white particles — fiberglass insulation? Asbestos dust? Scotch broom pollen?
• 8-12, 1-5 — Throughout the day, random rattling noises occur, as things in the flat vibrate in sympathy with various large machine noises. Hearing random ticks and vibrations in an otherwise empty flat is unnerving.

While it’s always exciting in a “Bob the Builder”/Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel kind of way to watch heavy machinery work, the noise and screeching and dust are not conducive to writing novels, nor studying, and both D&T are beset with allergies — culminating in migraine-like headaches and sneezing. Sleep is hard to come by, as the generator keeps us in a half-waking state, and we’re both getting verrrrry cranky.

This is NOT good.

So, we’re flat-hunting, and on a positive note, we are scheduled to see three flats this week already. Though D’s schedule has gotten a bit more crammed, as his PhD department is inviting him to attend specific lectures given by some rather prominent professors from other universities, we are managing to juggle it all. We are encouraged by seeing some nice and affordable flats in Partick and Anniesland which are closer to suburban Glasgow and have ACTUAL TREES.

We discovered the other day that we miss trees. And the moon. And stars. A foodie friend posted a picture on her blog, and we spent a quiet moment looking at the window in the background of the shot, and the trees in her yard. The trees weren’t even in focus (the beet salad was, and yes, okay, it was lovely, too.), but the trees, they were gorgeous. *Sigh* Also, with food crises going on all over the world, it makes us anxious not to at least have a few pots of herbs growing — this is our first year in many without a garden, and it makes us twitchy to be surrounded by so much asphalt, glass and steel. It’s definitely time to move out of this temporary housing — stylish though it might be — and move somewhere we can settle in for the long haul, and maybe grow a few things.

The countdown is on for the end of school, as D. turns in two papers next Thursday and then joins in to pack up the flat, give away yet more things to the Salvation Army and the massive Glasgow public library system (sorry Dundee!), and to look for flats like mad.

Our cunning (or delusional — you make the call!) plan is to find a new flat, fling our stuff inside, lock it up, and leave the country — for a whirlwind tour of the U.S.! We hope to buy tickets next week, and make a quick visit to NorCal to hug all the family tight and attend our niece’s graduation and then D. will drag us north to do some work in Portland and possibly Miami. After that, we’ll fill a suitcase with all that we want to bring back (another twenty-five pounds of pinto beans, anyone?) hug our family tightly again, and fly back.

Yes, this sadly will be a short trip and busy-busy, but if all goes well, we’ll be able to schedule another longer visit to Cali in October or November — when it’s getting dark here and the light is lingering there. That simply makes better sense, as tickets shouldn’t be as expensive if we’re not trying to travel near a holiday. Of course, with the way fuel prices are spiking, we may find out that it’s still pricey, but that’s another worry for another day…

Meanwhile, the phone is ringing, and it’s bound to be another realtor. Cheers!

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.