Tales from Falsidehill

Norma no mates

I’m at my parents’ house in Edinburgh just now. I’m all alone. My parents, sister and sister’s boyfriend are all out at a Crowded House concert in Glasgow. (I love Crowded House but nobody invited me to the concert. Sniff.) And James is at a work night out nearby in Musselburgh so we’re staying here overnight seeing as it’s so convenient.

We left our house at 6.45am this morning so that James had enough time to drop me off here and then go to work. It takes almost an hour to get here so I’ve been here ALL DAY!! It was just my mum and me for most of the day. We took Jodie for a walk into Portobello. It was raining and Jodie was a bit excitable. She’s not used to walking on pavements or near busy roads. She’s not even used to seeing people or other dogs when she’s out walking. Walking in Portobello isn’t that nice an experience. I always forget how noisy it is. It still feels quite like home but more out of familiarity than fondness. I never regret moving out to the country.

I had to drive James to Musselburgh for his night out which was a bit of a stressful experience for me. I’ve only driven once on my own and it was into Kelso which is a route I’ve taken many times so I was confident with it. Plus, the roads at home are so quiet too and are mostly fast roads which I much prefer. Here there are traffic lights and pedestrians and lots of cars even at night. I pretty much had a panic attack before we even set off. It wasn’t the horrible doomy kind of panic attack; it was more the ‘I CAN’T DO THIS, I HATE YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THIS, I WANT TO GO HOME, I’M NOT DOING IT, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD’ kind of panic attack. Sort of like a tantrum, even with some crying added in there too. I’m so ashamed! I feel so sorry for James but he is absolutely AMAZING at keeping his cool, telling me ‘no in actual fact, you are going to do this, you can do this, you’ll be fine’.

I have to say that I’m not normally like this. I do get nervous when doing new things but it takes a lot for me to point blank refuse to do something. It was just the thought of driving home in the dark on my own that really scared me. But, of course, I did it and it was totally fine. The only thing that wasn’t perfect was when I had to park outside my parents’ house. I reversed onto the pavement and somehow got myself a bit… diagonal. It took me a good few times to straighten up and reverse before I was happy with my parking, so I was glad it was dark because I left the car with a pretty red face I think. Phew.

So, yeah, now I’m sitting here all on my norm. I was all ready to settle in to watch ‘The House of Tiny Tearaways’ but it’s bloody well not on tonight which makes me sad. I love that show. Don’t think there’s much on TV at all tonight. Don’t think my folks have many DVDs. They do have lots of shortbread biscuits though which is very bad. I never eat biscuits at home but I seem to make up for that when I come here. Time to put the kettle on again!