City vs Nature

Leaving my flat, a flat that is a brick and plaster building on the 3rd floor. I try and keep the noise down as I walk across the creaky floorboards. I walk down the concrete stairs and let the timber door of the building gently close.

I step out into the crisp air and onto the concrete path. walking through the tar sealed estate toward the main road. I jog up the concrete wheelchair ramp looking up toward the glass bus stop. I cross the sealed road on to the other concrete footpath. I look up at the electronic screen showing the approximate wait time for the next bus.

When the 26 comes I get in, swipe the plastic card and find a seat on the second level. Driving through Edinburgh I see stubborn trees poking out through the concrete landscape. Behind stonewalls and between concrete paths. Passing football stadiums that have plenty of grass. We go to these stadiums to watch other people play on the grass while we sit on plastic seats.

The glass windows I look through steam up but I can see the castle as we trundle along Princes Street, overlooking the gardens. I get off the bus onto a busy Shandwick Place, following a concrete path that leads me to a 200 year old stone building that i will work on all day only to repeat the same journey in reverse at the end of it.

But, despite all that concrete, stone and manicured nature, I live at Portobello beach. Sure, thanks to the nearby waste treatment centre it occasionally smells like shit.

But when the wind is just right, Portobello is my dose of real nature for the day.