Tag Archives: Edinburgh

The One Where We Move to London

September 11, 2011 By in Family, Harpenden, Scotland Tags: , , , , , 34 Comments

You have no idea how hard it has been to sit on this news until all the relevant contracts have been signed and sealed. I’ve been itching to tell you… sitting on my fingers to stop myself pressing publish.

DorkyDad has accepted an exciting new job with an international charity based in London. I’m incredibly proud of him for taking on such a big challenge, and trying to use the knowledge and experience he has from working in higher education to benefit another sector.

Now that we’ve had a few days to absorb the news, pop the champagne and wave our pompoms, the reality is starting to sink in that Clan Dawkins is moving to Englandshire.

Oh my.

We are doing this completely the wrong way round. Most sane people start off in the city, and then escape to a mid-size town, before ending up in a village to have their family. DorkyDad started off in small-town America and I started off in the Western Isles… we met in Edinburgh… and now, with a 2 year old, we are moving to a city with a population bigger than that of Scotland.

Ach. We have never been a family do to things the ‘right way’.

I am by turns excited and terrified.

I go to sleep with a smile on my face, imagining myself in the London I know from watching Richard Curtis films; entertaining friends in my swanky Notting Hill pad, chatting to famous authors at book launches, and running through the snow in pants and bare feet to kiss my Mr Darcy.

And then I wake up imagining myself in the London of the riotous news footage. I have been scaring myself by looking up crime statistics online. I am starting to think that two mornings of nursery for DorkySon will probably cost more than our mortgage. People are telling me I should be joining school waiting lists now. Right now. Preferably yesterday.

I suspect, and hope, the reality will be somewhere in between. London is a place that extends far beyond what I know from film and television. I am vastly reassured by the emails I’ve had from friends, some of whom have children too, telling me that they love it; that it’s a wonderful city, that I will never be bored and yes they do have parks and green spaces there too, most of which I won’t be mugged in.

To keep the excitement and terror in some kind of equilibrium, I am making trade-offs in my head.

For example… on the downside, we are unlikely to find a flat that will accommodate our massive and beautiful dining table, which was bought for an Edinburgh sized room. But on the upside, we can go for sunny-day picnics with my London-based brother and his girlfriend. On the downside, we’re probably not going to have a big private garden for DorkySon to roam around in. But on the upside, we can spend every weekend wandering round the London Transport Museum (or we can just pay £1.30 and go for a ride on the nearest red bus, which will probably keep him just as happy).

We have so much to learn. Who knew that Barnes and Barnet are two entirely different places? That the Circle Line isn’t actually a circle anymore; that rents are advertised per week instead of per month; and that the same property can be marketed by half a dozen different agents. It’s enough to make a wee Scottish girl’s head spin.

What I would really like, right now, is for someone to hold my hand and sort out all the details. Find us a perfect house, at the perfect price, in the perfect area. Make sure there’s a big old park nearby, a choice of affordable nurseries, some great shops, and a leisurely fifteen-minute walk to DorkyDad’s office. While they’re at it, they could throw in an annual membership to the Tate Modern, and dinner reservations at Nobu for the weekend we move down.

But that’s not going to happen. Richard Curtis didn’t write this life. So I have to put my big girl panties on – top up my Oyster card, keep trawling through the property listings, and start packing my books into boxes. It’s an adventure. I can do adventures; I’m just a bit out of practice.

There is a lot we are going to miss about Edinburgh – enough to warrant its own post in the next week or two – but like Alice in Wonderland, with her oversized limbs poking through the windows of a house and her giant head jammed against the ceiling, we’ve recently been feeling like we have outgrown it. When we stand on our front porch and listen to the wind, whispering in the trees, it’s telling us that it’s time to move on.

So we are. Moving onwards and, hopefully, moving upwards.

Look out London. Here come the Dorkys.

Helpful suggestions for places to live, places to avoid, estates agents to give a wide berth etc are very welcome, either here or across on the DorkyMum Facebook Page. And if anyone has a flat they’d like to lend us for a couple of months, now’s the time to speak up!

Live in the Now: September

September 4, 2011 By in Family, Scotland Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Pink blossoms on a blue background with the slogan 'live in the now'

Happy September!

The nights are drawing in, and there is a chill in the air. DorkySon’s windows have that sweep of condensation on them when I open his shutters in the morning (he points at it and tells me we need to call the window cleaners), but I love this time of year. The trees are all turning to autumn colours, and some evenings the final moments of sunlight are just magical. Best of all, the city is getting quieter, hunkering down in preparation for winter. The purple cow, the street perfomers and the visiting luvvies have all gone into hibernation. Continue reading →

A Perfect Day

August 29, 2011 By in Scotland Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

So we saved the best until last.

DorkyDad and I haven’t spent much time out and about together this Festival, because we’ve been so busy with work. Work finally finished, for both of us, on Saturday night.

Yesterday was DorkyDad’s birthday, and instead of going out for a meal, or seeing a show, we spent the day sitting on the sofa in our pyjamas, watching Peppa Pig with DorkySon. It was great. At 4pm I finally hauled myself up the road to get a Sunday paper and a pizza for dinner, but that was the sum total of our activity.

On the spur of the moment, about 9pm last night, I decided to see if we could squeeze into the Pommery Bar at the Signet Library on their very last day. Four years ago, we got married there – a magical, happy day in a truly stunning building – and I thought it’d be nice to pop in and see how it was looking.

So this morning, after dropping DorkySon at nursery, we giggled our way across the Meadows, and treated ourselves to a bottle of champagne and a couple of hours reconnecting.

The wonderful folk at Heritage Portfolio have done a great job. The Pommery Bar feels exclusive, but not intimidating in the slightest. The service is friendly and attentive, but not fussy; our glasses always seemed to be full but we were left to chat and admire our surroundings (although I confess that we spent longer watching the reflection of the champagne bubbles in the mirror-topped table than we did staring at the ceiling!). We got a little over-excited when, on the way out, we saw another couple being given a tour of the building and the same spiel we’d been given about why it makes a great wedding venue. “Do it!” we said, rushing up and interrupting their discussion. “We got married here and loved it!”

So that was a great start to the last day. Then on the way home we stopped off, at the Udderbelly, for one of those amazing burgers and chips that I was raving about yesterday. The food was still great… but we got a little distracted. In one of those one-in-a-million, once-in-a-lifetime moments, I looked up from my burger and spotted a bit of graffiti on the wall beside us.

‘I Heart Young Dawkins’

It was written in blue, although the heart was coloured in red. I took a photo, which I will post up here, when I’ve worked out how to get it off my phone.

Wow. Someone liked DorkyDad’s show enough to scribble his name on the wall! That’s crazy. But cool. I am a little bit jealous. But mostly impressed. He hopes it was a girl. I hope it was a guy. Whoever it was, it doesn’t really matter. The chances of us gong to the Udderbelly on the very last day of the Festival, and sitting in that seat, and spotting that writing… I’m not sure how it happened, but I like that it did. And now, as I write this, that wall has probably been removed. It’s in the back of a truck somewhere, and next year it’ll have had a new lick of purple paint, and the graffiti will be gone.

So that was pretty awesome.

And then we came home, and picked DorkySon up from nursery. And then my day really was made. I’ve already bragged about this on Facebook, so apologies to those of you who are encountering my hitherto hidden competitive side for the second time today… but I am truly bursting with pride. The nursery started doing a sticker chart for good behaviour this week, and, on the first day, DorkySon is the only kid to get a gold star on it. For tidying up all the books.

Yes indeed, that is my boy. Those are my boys. And that was my day. It was a good one.

The end of the Edinburgh Festival (and I feel fine)

August 28, 2011 By in Poetry, Scotland Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

So it’s the final weekend of the Edinburgh Fringe! Thank goodness. Fun though it has been, it’s time for life to calm down again… or at least time to start drinking a little less and sleeping a little more.

I did a post halfway through the Fringe, about some of my highlights at that stage, and I’ve already done one over-emotional post about some of the lovely people I encountered throughout August, but here are some of my other festival moments I haven’t had a chance to ramble about yet.

Nom Nom

We might as well get the food chat out of the way. Lord knows you’ve probably worked out by now that the only think I enjoy more than eating is writing about eating. Next year I’m determined to spend an entire day wandering from food stall to food stall, trying everything that the Fringe has to offer. This year I only made it to one or two old favourites, but found time to taste the offerings at a couple of new stalls too.

The fabulous Passion 4 Juice bar had been moved from its usual spot outside the Gilded Balloon to a new, much quieter, location on the south side of George Square. They were rightfully indignant at being bumped down the culinary pecking order. From what I overheard, while I was subtly eavesdropping on the muttering punters outside Teviot, the indignation was twofold, and Passion 4 Juice’s presence was much missed in that part of town. Irrespective of Edinburgh’s geographical politics, though, their fresh, zingy smoothies with shots of ginseng and echinacea remain awesome… If you need to recover from over-indulging in their evening offerings (Hot Apple Cider) then I recommend the watermelon, pineapple and mint.

The strawberry and Nutella crepes at C Too provided some sweet and very welcome warmth for DorkySon and me as we queued for a show in the rain. We made almost daily visits to the Mackies Ice Cream bike, shared several hummus and carrot sandwiches in the Pleasance Courtyard, and thought we’d found our favourite festival food when we had the lamb burger from the lovely Outsider people in George Square. BUT… that was before we’d found the Laughing Stock stall tucked away in a corner under the purple head of the Udderbelly. Not just the tastiest burger and chips I can remember eating at the Festival, but the tastiest burger and chips I can remember eating anywhere in a long, long time. I really hope they’ll be back next year.

Earworms

“Sure!” I said. “I’ll do the kids shows! One a day for the entire Fringe.”

Little did I know that I was exposing myself to some of the most persistent earworms known to man. I owe a large and sincere apology to the numerous festivalgoers who have caught me wandering around the city, pushing DorkySon in his pram, belting out songs from whatever kiddy theatre performance I’ve just left.  My voice is not the best. In fact, it’s pretty horrendous. Normally I mime when singing Happy Birthday at family parties. But still…

“I am a mole… and I know… that it is none of my business.”

“Hairy Maclary…. from Donaldson’s Dairy.”

And my enduring favourite… “Stick Man” – pause – “lives in the family tree” – pause – “with his stick lady love, and stick children three.”

Cue jazzhands.

Perhaps by this time next year they’ll have stopped going round, and round, and round in my head. And I’ll be ready for Toddler Tunes Take Two. Bring your earplugs in 2012, people.

Loveliness

If the downside of reviewing kids shows is earworms, then the upside is meeting some of the nicest people at the Festival. I’ve already rumbled on about meeting John Hegley, and being taken aback by how lovely and normal he was. My second interview was science communicator and BBC presenter Marty Jopson. If he’d not had another interview and a performance to do, I would have happily sat under an umbrella in George Square and chatted to him all day. He was interesting! Self-deprecating! Smart, funny, and kind! Obviously he hadn’t received the memo instructing him to display all his performer lanyards prominently and act like a complete arse.

I thought encountering two nice performers was already pushing the boundaries of possibility… and then I found myself reviewing Kevin Cruise. I expected to hate it. I actually loved it. And because I was the only reviewer who bothered to show up to the Bosco Tent in the middle of the afternoon to see him, KC was terribly grateful. I woke up, the morning after my review was published, to a lovely email from him saying thank you.

It was all very civilised indeed. If I am lucky enough to be given the opportunity next year, I will definitely be sticking with the Kids section.

DorkySon upstages his Dad

So I’d made plans to meet a friend for coffee in the Forest Café, not realising that DorkyDad was doing a poetry reading in there the same day, as part of the 36 hour No Sleep In Bristo event. We showed up just as he was coming to the end of his set  – DorkySon couldn’t even see his Dad, as a decent-sized audience and a dividing wall blocked his view – but he sure as heck heard him.

“DADA!” he yelled!

“Shhh…” I whispered. “Daddy’s reading his poems.”

“LET ME OUT, MAMA!”

“Let’s just listen for a minute.”

“I WANT TO SEE DADA”

“In a minute…”

“WHERE IS DADA? DAAAADAAAAAA? WHERE ARE YOU?”

So I let DorkySon out of his pram; just as DorkyDad was starting to read a poem about him. He rushed up, snuggled into his Dad’s legs for a minute, did a couple of twirls for the audience, just to make sure he’d been noticed, and then scooted back over to me. He doesn’t like to be the centre of attention for too long, DorkySon, but he likes to know that you’ve noticed him.

My other highlights, in no particular order, are: The Incredible Book Eating Boy; meeting up with old university friends; Bubblewrap and Boxes; walking along Jawbone Walk and seeing lots of eggs hanging from the trees; a very temporary exhibition of canvases, hammered to the trees, also on Jawbone Walk; overhearing someone tell John Malkovich that their favourite film of his was Con Air; the colour John Malkovich’s face turned when he heard that; hearing my sweet DorkySon say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ everywhere we went; the Fest end-of-festival staff meal, even though I bailed out to go to bed at 9.30pm; getting squashed on the bus by an embarrassed looking man with a tuba; Fest’s Kid Critics; being very proud of DorkyDad for his show; seeing the outpouring of love for the Forest Café; being grown-up enough that I don’t feel the need to wear my press pass anymore; someone at the BBC saying to my husband “You’re married to DorkyMum? She’s a legend!”

Auld Reekie Roller Girl Role Models?

August 26, 2011 By in Guest Posts Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

My Facebook feed has been chock-a-block recently with folk getting excited about the Auld Reekie Roller Girls – Edinburgh’s flat track roller derby team. I am thrilled to have a guest post about ARRG from Mairi Campbell-Jack, a poet who lives in Edinburgh with her daughter and tweets as @lumpinthethroat. I’m also super chuffed to have been given permission by the excellent Edinburgh photographer Dan Phillips to use the accompanying shots. You can find Dan on Twitter as @dan_photo, but more importantly you can check out his website here and Flickr stream here. 

While on SlutWalk Edinburgh a few months ago I got a chance to start talking to another radical lefty Mum (where else does one meet her peers?) and we both started discussing our daughters and their understanding of femininity.  This was something on my mind following a conversation I’d had with my daughter at a bus stop a few weeks ago.

Daughter:  Mummy, why are you not beautiful today?

Me:  What makes you think I’m not beautiful?

Daughter:  Yesterday you wore a skirt.

As I discussed on a previous post on Barbie, I am reasonably relaxed now about letting my daughter choose her own toys and clothes, but her preoccupation with whether clothing make someone “beautiful” does tend to worry.  Fellow radical lefty Mum pointed me in the direction of Roller Derby, as a great example of alternative feminities.  I happened to know someone on the Edinburgh writing circuit who played and so I booked tickets to the Auld Reekie Roller Girls festival match.

I must say I was a bit sceptical as I am one of those people who have grown-up utterly hating sport.  I hate everything about it, from how incredibly boring it is to the constant unremitting whine that comes from the television whenever it is on.  The last time I was taken to see live sport it was an ice-hockey game, and I have no shame to say I found it so tedious that I read through the last third.

I watched Roller Derby and came away a complete convert.  It’s violent (secretly I’m disappointed there wasn’t a fight), fast, fun and the women in it are really enjoying playing the sport but also using it as a way to play with their own image and express their sexuality.  I wouldn’t really describe it as feminine. Feminine as a word in our culture often carries with it overtones of passivity, and Roller Derby is much more grown up than that, while maintaining a sense of playfulness I have never witnessed in other sports.  While one of the often valid criticisms of many sub-cultures is the sameness of dress and make-up choice of those within it, some of whom often claim to appear to be seeking individuality, I don’t feel that can be fairly levelled at Roller Derby.

If you look at the team dress and make-up, which appears to stem directly from the Riot Grrrl tradition, then the conclusion you would come to would be that it is a very homogenous alternative – but you know, being a team they do have to wear a uniform.  However, if you bother to turn around and look at the crowd you will see a very different story.  The crowd is predominantly female, but there are also a lot of men in there.  There are people with strange hair, tattoos and piercings.  At the same time there were people of every age range, children as young as six months, families, groups of friends, people who even looked like social workers or the sort of people who buy vegan shoes and some who looked decidedly mainstream – honestly, it was like some of them weren’t even trying to be cool.

How did it affect my daughter?  Well her behaviour that day wasn’t her best, she didn’t like the noise, was bored and desperate to get my attention as we had been apart for a week.  She did say she wanted to go again.  I went straight out and bought the t-shirt and put it on as soon as I got home.