An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Much to the annoyance of some locals, other locals have been parking in front of the new communal bins on Hart Street between 9.50pm and 7.50am.
On several occasions, this practice (always by the same three drivers, it seems) has blocked the bins from the road and prevented them being emptied.
Its 3.00am. The baby monitor starts to beep and I wake up.
The battery is exceptionally low and I presume that I forgot to switch the charger on. I attempt to turn my lamp on so I can check, but it doesn’t work. I get out of bed and try the main bedroom light but that’s not working either.
Then it hits me: there is no power and I know why. Mrs Left-Handed Tea Drinker wakes up and it’s time for me to confess everything …
One week earlier
The landline phone rings.
LHTD: ‘Hello.’
Two works by contrasting painters in closely situated galleries caught the eye on Dundas Street this afternoon.
The first (‘The Interpreter’, right) is part of a solo exhibition by Roar Kjaernstad in the Sutton Gallery which continues until 25 October.
Kjaernstad was born in Norway in 1975 and studied art first in Lillehammer and then Antwerp. He is currently the artist-in-residence at Durham University.
The rather modest exterior of 4 Bellevue Street doesn’t scream ‘Look at me!’, but it’s certainly worth a visit. Inside is a remarkably light and airy space filled with radiant colour.
Since 20 August, this has been the home of Edinburgh Patchwork, a new business specialising in all things quilting.
Despite a catastrophic recent drop in population (numbers may have declined by as much as 71 per cent between 1977 and 2008), the RSPB estimates that 5,300,000 breeding pairs of house sparrows remain in the United Kingdom.
Judging by the noise, Spurtle estimates that 5,299,998 of them are currently hard at it in a hedge on the corner of Bellevue Place and Melgund Terrace.
Distribution of the printed October Spurtle (Issue 234) began this morning in the usual mixture of mist, rain and brilliant sunshine.
It's a process which covers a lot of territory, and usually throws up some interesting sights. Here are a few of the joys and oddities encountered today.
Pictured right is a wholly incomprehensible no-cats stencil decorating a bin on Dundas Street.
Just around the corner on Great King Street, a local good Samaritan seeks the owner of a lost cat found.
The Bonnington Partnership has announced plans for a major new development of 200 flats on Bonnington Road Lane (Ref. 14/03896/PAN).
Ashley Place also falls within the designated area (see map at foot of page), which is just outside Spurtleshire but likely to affect local roads, schools and shops in due course.
Most locals will know something of the Monument to the Political Martyrs of 1794 in Old Calton Burying Ground.
Tesco’s plans for a new level/ramped entrance, railings, retail fit-out and other external changes at 30–30A Dundas Street have been consented (Ref. 14/02746/LBC; Breaking news, 29.7.14).
When it comes to the fast changing world of local and national events, it’s business as usual in the forthcoming October issue of the Broughton Spurtle.