My much-loved but poorly maintained bike is hovering dangerously close to the death at the moment.  A serious-sounding clunking noise issues from it with alarming regularity, and I’m all but convinced that a pretty major part of it – as in one of the wheels, or the chain – is about to fall off.  Most likely this will happen at the most inopportune time: when I’m sandwiched between two lanes of traffic is one specific vision that springs to mind.  So given the ill health of my most favoured vehicle in the world, combined with my current lack of funds to do anything whatsoever about it, I’m resigned to riding the bus to and from work every day.

Historically, I have viewed taking the bus with the same amount of disdain I harbour for those Tesco “wow, this really is like eating buttered cardboard” pre-packed sandwiches.  I won’t lie: my dislike of buses almost certainly derived from growing up in a small seaside village where only one of them passed through every hour.*  If you missed it, you either had to mooch around for ages while waiting for the next one, or cancel your trip altogether.  Needless to say I (and most of my friends) spent many months and years yearning for the day I could learn to drive, and then after that, yearning for the day I could actually afford to run my own car and never again have to endure the teenage torment of waiting for a bus that sometimes decided not to even bother pitching up.

Clearly, however, I’ve mellowed over the years.  Because I have to say, taking the bus last week was really pretty fun.  It gave me heaps of time to read, for one thing, but I also had plenty of opportunity to observe other people going about their daily business which, for a Grade A people watcher like myself, was almost as fun as free-wheeling Edinburgh’s hills on my bike would have been in the first place.  Admittedly less healthy though.

Four observations from the bus last week:

1) The Metro is the KING of commuter literature

Pretty much everyone on my 7.30am bus is immersed in the Metro.  People sit side by side, holding the paper up in front of their faces, completely engrossed in the contents.  It appears to be customary not only to read the Metro, but to leave one’s copy of the Metro on the seat when one exits the bus.  I don’t know whether this is born out of courtesy to other commuters, or if it’s just because people can’t be bothered to take the paper away with them and finish reading it later (I can’t help but think that this latter possibility reflects pretty poorly on the content of the Metro itself).  I have to say, however, I like it.  I’m on the bus for an average of 40 minutes in the morning, and during that time I can watch up to four different people peruse the same increasingly tattered paper.  It’s kind of nice, albeit in a mildly depressing sort of way.

2) No one talks

No one utters a word on my bus in the morning until at least 8.00am.  People don’t even exchange niceties.  I asked one girl if I could sit in the seat next to her the other day and she looked up at me with an expression of genuine shock, as though the idea of someone actually talking to her hadn’t even crossed her mind.  True to commuter form, she didn’t say anything to me in response – a mere shrug of the shoulders and a return to her staring out of the window was all I got by way of acquiescence.  Then, when we arrived at her stop a few minutes later, she abruptly stood up and pushed past me without so much as a grimace.  I thought she was just a bit rude but my observations over the course of the rest of the week tell me otherwise.  The morning bus is just not somewhere we talk.  Deal with it, new girl.

3) People seem a little miserable

So I get that people are tired and could probably think of several things they’d rather be doing than heading into work at the crack of dawn but guys?  Crack a smile for heaven’s sake!  Even a “yeah this sucks a bit” grimace would do!

4) There’s always one person who has their music turned up too loud…

…presumably to drown out the drone of Edinburgh’s trademark double deckers, which themselves sound as though they could do with some hot milk and an extra hour in bed.

How do you get to work every day?  Do you have any commuter stories to share?  This really makes me laugh, so please let me know your thoughts.

Image above from Flickr – knehcsg.

*I realise this may make me sound a little precious: my boyfriend grew up in a town where there were only two buses the entire day.

I’ve lived in Edinburgh for nigh on seven years now, but there’s still a whole raft of guide book attractions here that I’ve never experienced.  When visiting friends ask me for recommendations I’m stumped.  I could happily reel you off a list of the best cake joints, cycle routes and places to catch a good sunset, but talk of all that commercial touristy stuff usually leaves me looking at my shoes and muttering something about straying from the beaten track.  To give you just some idea of the scale of my ignorance, I’ve never been into the castle (although if there was a prize for gazing at it I’d win, hands down), I haven’t been to the Dynamic Earth science centre and I’ve never even set foot in the National Gallery of Modern Art.

And, until last night, I hadn’t been on one of the city’s infamous ghost tours (well, not since I was 12 and came here on a school trip, which I’m almost certain doesn’t count).  The ghost tours are a rite of passage for most visitors to the capital but, if I’m honest, I’m prone to rolling my eyes at the very mention of them.  I’m forever seeing groups of jaded-looking tourists clutching Rough Guides while being herded up and down the Royal Mile by a loudmouthed guide dressed in an ankle length cape and Doc Marten boots.  And to be perfectly frank?  It’s just never looked like that much fun.

But let me just say this: I was wrong.

Edinburgh ghost tours are fun.  And interesting.  And downright eerie at times too.  Besides visiting the city vaults** and taking a peek at the torture museum, we were told some pretty gruesome tales about witch trials, body snatching and the sewerage systems in the city circa the 1700s (otherwise known as a bucket and a window).  I enjoyed it immensely, and would highly recommend it to visitors in future (besides my favourite cakes places, bike rides and sunset spots, of course).  Our tickets were around £10 and we got a free drink at the end of it which I can tell you now you will need!

So.  Ghost tours.  Do one sometime.  I bet you’ll enjoy it.

Do you ever go touristing at home?  What are your recommendations to people visiting your city?

**There’s an entire network of these running underneath Edinburgh’s centre, some of which are completely blocked up and have been for hundreds of years.  Something to think about should you ever find yourself sipping a chai latte in an old town Starbucks, no?

Image above from Flickr – sunstarr.

1. I love the biting, toe-curling, crimson-cheeks-making cold that’s so necessary for you to appear…
2. I love bunkering down in bed with a cup of tea and a good book, occasionally glancing up to watch your graceful downward plummet…
3. I love the way you demand we wear bobble hats, earmuffs and stripy, colourful, joy-creating mittens…
4. I love the way you make snow angels possible – so simple, so beautiful, so easy to do…
5. I love the community spirit you engender – we desperately need our yearly dose of that ‘lend a shovel or a pair of hands’ mentality…
6. I love the ridiculous amounts of unnecessary news coverage you so effortlessly command…
7. I love the vehicle-free streets you fill with revelling pedestrians…
8. I love the way you encourage us to dust off our walking boots, wellies and cross-country skies.  Your zero-tolerance attitude to heels reminds me to keep it real…
9. I love the way you encourage the architects in all of us – snow sculptures are far more fun than buildings…
10. I love layering my clothes as a mark of respect to the power you have to freeze me where I stand…
11. I love the hot chocolates, oozing cream, marshmallows and calories from every drop that are totally justified after an afternoon spent with you…
12. I love the way you close our workplaces and fill our parks…
13. I love the way mulled wine tastes even more delicious when it’s consumed in your presence – the palette-pleasing way to warm chill-bitten fingers…
14. I love the way you lie heavy on branches, so lazily creating the most astounding Dickensian Christmas card scenes…
15. I love the way you silently endorse snuggling under blankets with festive films and all manner of snacks…
16. I love the perfect silence and the sound insulation you bestow upon us for free…
17. I love the way you so often come in the night, giving us the most exciting early morning surprises…
18. I love the way you make guys want to wear roll neck jumpers in neutral tones…
19. I love your non-elitism – a 99p roasting tin is as good a vehicle for sledging as any…
20. I love the way you encourage stomping…
21. I love the way you render our cars speechless and bury them in drifts – you remind us we don’t actually need them to survive, which is nice…
22. I love the way you know we won’t slow down unless something makes us, and that you then take it upon yourself to actually be that something…
23. I love the way you drape yourself over our most beautiful buildings and instantly bring them to life again – like a light, white, icing sugar frosting…
24. I love the way you bring us joy – everyone seems to smile, giggle and dance more when you’re around, and I appreciate that…
25. I love the impromptu falls in the street you so cheekily cause – these do wonders for reminding me not to take myself too seriously…
26. I love the way you bring us together, make us equal and encourage us to smile and engage with each other.  You are, without doubt, my favourite form of free entertainment.  Please don’t go away too soon…

Image above from Flickr – Jason Prini.

To everyone who helped me celebrate my blog’s first birthday by submitting lovely birthday-themed comments, thank you!  I want to pick you all as winners but I’m afraid there’s not enough free stuff to go round – isn’t that always the way?

So without further ado, the winner is…

Lovely Jane from Cobblestonesea!

Congratulations Jane!  Drop me a line at ralreid@gmail.com with your address and I’ll get some lovely freebies on their way to you very soon!

With that little globule of excitement out of the way, I can move on to boring you all with tales of a wet Edinburgh Autumn.  As is the usual these days, the infrequency of my posting is an issue.  Rather than spread my thoughts out into manageable bites, I invariably find myself vomiting all of my newsworthy tales into the one post, guaranteed to bring even my most patient, kind-hearted readers out in a rash.  For this I can only offer my apologies (again) and promise you that I’ll try my utmost to do better next week.  In the meantime, here’s some useless information about the last seven days…

…Visiting

So last weekend I went to London.  The picture above is of a rainy Portobello market on Saturday morning, chalked to the brim with battered brown satchels, Victorian teapots and enormous vats of delicious-smelling paella.  As you can imagine, the country bumpkin in me found all of this painfully exciting, and I surprised myself considerably by being not even an inch of a bit bothered by the amoeba-like crowds that swamped the stalls and swarmed in and out of the shops in a hapless bid to dodge the showers.  Despite my insatiable satchel obsession, I managed to refrain from buying one, and instead shored up my desire for vintage tan leather by gorging on some market stall falafel instead.  A righteous substitute, I thought.

London excites me.  It carries a mysterious but completely alluring aura that I’ve yet to encounter in another UK city.  It makes Edinburgh look like the Outer Hebrides it’s so vibrant.  Places to go, things to see, bandwagons to jump on (and the people watching is second to none).  Whenever I go I find it almost impossible not to feel both completely ecstatic and utterly baffled at the same time.  I’d love to experience the city in more depth, and after two relatively pain-free train journeys, I’ve come to believe, however foolishly, that this isn’t quite the impossibility I’ve previously imagined.  So with that in mind I’ve firmly scrawled (in ink) the words ‘explore London’ upon my long-term to-do list.  I’ll let you know what comes of it.

…Watching

In other news, I’ve seen a few good films recently.  Last Thursday I went to the always-delightful Dominion to watch Red (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Bruce Willis), which was absurdly entertaining and laugh-a-second stuff, despite considerable amounts of eye-popping gore.  Then last night I saw The Kids are All Right, which I really enjoyed, despite some initial scepticism.  I also watched The Proposal last week, which really made me laugh despite its much-deserved place on the wholly predictable rom-com trash scale (which I’m by no means averse to now and then).

…Spiritually cleansing

Sadly not cosmic ordering.  Over the past year or so, a couple of my long-term friendships seem to have been causing me more upset and anxiety than happiness and fulfilment.  There aren’t really any concrete reasons as to why, and I don’t even think that there’s any blame or fault to apportion.  I simply haven’t felt positive about things for a long time, and instead have been harbouring considerable amounts of self-reproach and bitterness – rarely a good course of action that one.  So instead of battle on and let things consume me, I decided a few weeks ago to lie low for a while, to make less contact and fewer arrangements with those involved and to generally give myself a bloody break.  It’s not a very easy thing to do, and I have worried a couple of times that I’m doing more harm than good by distancing myself from my problems rather than confronting them head-on in all their ugliness.  At the same time, however, my mind already feels like less of a glass paperweight than it has done for a while.  The break has also freed up time for me to hang out with people who do good things for my soul, which is never something to complain about.

…Meeting

Finally, and speaking of people who do good things for my soul, I met one of my favourite bloggers!  Holly was in town last Wednesday, so we met for a coffee and spent the whole time chatting like old friends.  This was a novel experience for me, given that I’ve never met anyone I know online in person before (and I have to admit to having been a little bit nervous beforehand), but it really was great to transpose our friendship from keyboard to coffee shop after all these months.  I would definitely encourage anyone with blogger friends in the vicinity to take the leap of faith and meet in person.  Who knows what might come of it?

What have you been doing this week?

Well that was a rather rude, ugly, unexpected silence, wasn’t it?  I can only apologise and promise to try and do better in the future.  My blogging routine is all to pot at the moment what with studying and flatmate shuffling and excessive faffing about on my part taking place.  So while I used to find the time to write a post almost every day I’m now struggling to say hello to you lovely people even twice a week! A sad state of affairs for one of my favourite pastimes, no?

But while I might not be writing much, I have been very busy doing all sorts of other things.  I’ve finally signed up and been trained for volunteering (this is a major ‘life list’ box ticked by the way), and have my first session as a student advisor tomorrow morning.  I’m really excited about this but also pretty nervous – all sorts of nasty doubt-fringed questions have been popping into my head ever since I agreed to take it on, most of which are very definitely rocking the whole ‘who am I to give other people advice on anything?’ vibe.  But as the old adage goes, you never know until you try, do you?  Better to feel the fear and do it anyway rather than cower in the corner and regret it later.

Alongside volunteering, I’ve been on a bit of a mending spree, finally getting round to fixing a few things that have been languishing, unloved and broken in my flat, making me feel all guilty and ashamed every time I look at them.  Top of the list was my bike, which I  had roadtested by someone who actually knows what he’s doing (as opposed to me bumbling around with my pink screwdriver pretending I’m all clued up about gears).  It did cost a little bit but it was completely worth it as I’ve barely been out of the saddle since.  Cycling has suddenly become a beautiful pleasure again, as opposed to the bain of my entire existence, which is all to the greater good.  And at this time of year, when the world looks so pretty and autumnal, whizzing around on my refurbished wheels has really helped to keep my spirits high.  It also means I get to lectures on time, which is probably a sensible idea.

On Friday I pulled off my first ever three course meal, which I made for my boyfriend’s birthday.  We tucked into a starter of mussels served in a white wine, garlic and shallot sauce with homemade bread on the side; a main course of Moroccan lamb tagine with rice and a dessert of sticky toffee pudding (with the sweetest and probably most calorific toffee sauce I’ve ever tasted) and vanilla ice cream.  While I did cheat a little and use the slow cooker for the tagine, I did everything else myself, including “de-bearding” the mussels (gross).  I was stupidly pleased with the outcome and proceeded to celebrate by drinking just a little too much red wine.  Needless to say I spent most of Saturday repenting.  Oh the woe!

And so to this week.  Reading week, which is really just another name for HOLIDAY!  It’s not looking much like a holiday for me, however, as I’ve made a to-do list that actually fills two sides of A4 paper.  Included are lots of boring but necessary chores and a fair amount of homework, but there are a couple of altogether more exciting projects in there as well.  One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is trying to establish some kind of sideline income to support me while I study for the rest of the year.  While I have savings from my last job to keep me comfortable I’m really not a big fan of the idea of doing absolutely nothing to contribute to my own finances for such a long period of time.  I’m not talking big bucks, but even £30-40 per week would be enough to put my mind at ease a little.  So with this in mind I’ve set about re-stocking my eBay shop, I’ve done a tiny bit of freelance blogging and I’m tentatively laying the foundations for an exciting new internet-based project which I will tell you all about at some later date.  While none of these things will ever bring me anything even remotely approaching a regular stream of income, not least because they are all so unpredictable (eBay especially) they might help, however marginally, to preserve my savings for later in the year when I might really need them.  The more I make now, the more there is for later, the less I’ll have to borrow from the big horrible bank!  That’s my current fiscal mantra, and it’s not going too terribly so far.  I’ll keep you posted!

Image above from Flickr – Zest-pk.