We’re here at last. Oxgangs, South Edinburgh, that is. We saw the New Year in watching fireworks fizz up in miniature mushroom-like flurries across the city skyline as we huddled together in our blankets in the freezing winter air. A cheerful fellow nearby shouted “Happy New Year Oxgangs!” and we felt a swell of joy to count ourselves among the residents thus greeted.

It took most of 2020 for us to find a home in the area that we feel strongly is the right place for us to be in for the next little while. So many homes were unfeasibly small for our ‘gorgeously gigantic’ brood, or so oddly laid out we just couldn’t see how we’d make it work. Many were still too much of a budget stretch despite their impracticalities – it was all looking a bit hopeless – but at last we got ‘the feeling’ as we viewed yet another property behind masks. This one was our new home.

It took us by surprise as it wasn’t what we expected, or even what we were looking for really. Plus, I’ll be honest – and you may judge me for this, because I deserve it – but when I first saw what was to be our new building, I thought I might be a bit too middle class to live in it. It is a bit bleak looking, and on the outside looks just like some other flats in the area that have a decidedly rough feel. So we went to the viewing somewhat weary, apprehensive and resigned to yet another wasted trip, but hurrah – instead, destiny went before us. We had been hoping for a ground floor house with a garden, until we finally accepted that no such thing actually exists in the area within anything like our budget range, and we simultaneously realised that what we were looking at that day was actually perfectly workable. More than workable, in fact – great, despite being small, high up and garden-less.

Happily though, inside our building’s inauspicious exterior, all is well. It’s clean and tidy and all the front doors are immaculately kept. Oh, you can tell a lot from a front door!

The neighbours we have met so far seem friendly and keen to chat, and four out of seven households sent us a return Christmas card – plus someone nearby cooks some very delicious-smelling food. Especially keen to befriend that one, naturally!

Now that I’ve adjusted, I actually quite like the look of our new home. It is unassuming and straightforward, even quietly welcoming, like a friend who rarely gushes or grins at your arrival to their door but has the kettle on straightaway nonetheless. I like that our flat appears so high up from the ground, our little slice of homeliness safely shelved in the sky above the hustle and bustle of street level living. I like the memories it stirs of my grandparents’ home in new town Harlow when I was little, my urban roots.

Our building sits at the top of a hill, and we are on the very highest level, the third floor. As a result we have some brilliant views. (Obviously, there’s a mental playlist of songs – ‘Up where we belong’, ‘You raise me up’, ‘The only way is up’, ‘Top of the world’…other suggestions to vary the repertoire gratefully received.) At the back of the building, we are cheeringly close to a small precinct of shops, a new playpark coming soon, the kids’ new school, and Matt’s much-frequented haunt, Aldi. Behind that the Pentland hills loom invitingly, refreshing the soul with just a glance at their rugged beauty within such easy reach.

Legs and lungs have been refreshed too by wandering in the foothills in the snow (or cycling feverishly up and down unnecessary slopes in the dark, as some will insist on doing). From the other side of the building, we have a view right across the city, Edinburgh Castle presiding grandly over it, the Firth of Forth and the hills of the opposite shore beyond. We’ve never had a kitchen with a sea view before!

We quite like being high up, now that all the requisite sofas and bookshelves are in situe and no longer need hefting up the stairs. We’re ideally placed to look out reflectively over the area and think of the people close around us, people we hope to know, love and serve, all in good time. We find ourselves at the same preferred height as the birds and it’s a nice distraction from the washing up to watch them swoop and swirl in their clusters, flashing their softly feathered undersides as they take off en troupe from our rooftop and alight on a building nearby. We’re also very well positioned to admire sunsets, which is just as well as they seem to start at lunchtime at the moment. The joys of life in the almost-Arctic.

Inside the flat, things are feeling increasingly settled and homely. The boys have the biggest room in the house and make full use of all the space with regular games of indoor football and a unique, if somewhat violent sport called ‘dive on the beanbags’. We haven’t met the neighbours in the flat below ours yet but perhaps the daily tattoo being drummed out on their ceiling will be introduction enough. Beth is enjoying having a room with a window and a desk and all number of pretty items to organise, fling all over the floor in a creative rampage, and organise again.

Matt and I are in the smallest bedroom we’ve ever had and find many an opportunity for mirth, keeping each other chuckling with our robot-like efforts to manoeuvre smoothly around the miniscule space between double bed, wardrobes and wall. Thanks to advice from a well-meaning but rather impractical marriage book we read once, we now call our room ‘The Sanctuary’, just because the irony makes us laugh. The main draw, though, of our diminutive Zen-like space is that it contains the access to the only outside area via sliding doors to… the balcony! Joyous as that is, the balcony so far has been home to at least one of Matt’s bikes, which sorely tested The Sanctuary’s sanctification levels when Matt was obliged to lift his esteemed vehicle of choice across our double bed, along the chest of drawers, and through the curtains after a VERY muddy bike ride. Happily for our marriage there is a storage cupboard downstairs on the ground floor, which ‘one day’ will be the bike’s true home. We live in hope. It’s just that ‘we’ seem to have a few too many bikes to fit them all in the cupboard at the moment…

Bike arguments discussions aside, the balcony is my absolute favourite feature of the flat. Those few feet of fake plastic grass on whitewashed concrete honestly make such a difference to our quality of life. To stand outside, breathe fresh air, put the washing out, and gaze appreciatively at the distant hills is a relief and a privilege when the close quarters of the house are feeling a little too close. Matt has put up a hammock and we’ve even sat out there round a little fire in a tiny firepit, just to see, you know.

We treated ourselves to a new carpet for the lounge – the first new carpet we’ve ever bought, in fact – and it is a daily delight to traverse its smooth evenness. I don’t like to admit to this, but it’s even fun to hoover it! We are slowly arranging and then rearranging our belongings to try and make the best use of the space, and we’re aiming towards eliminating excess possessions and streamlining our systems to make sure everything has a workable home (and sparks joy, of course…). Progress can be slow but we’re getting there!

Our favourite thing outside the home is bumping into people we know. What a delightful novelty it is! We’ve lived here nearly two months now but we still come home squeaking with the excitement of having seen someone we know from church crossing a road or waiting for a bus. How we’ve missed actually knowing people nearby!

There is an army barracks near our new home, and every so often we hear the regular crack of firearms as they carry out training exercises. It’s a good reminder that we’re in a battle, and although life has become rather predictable and monotonous with another lockdown to ruin all our plans, we’re not to here just to get comfortable.

Matt has been pressing ahead with work despite the challenge of once again having to share his ‘office’ with 3 children attempting online home learning, and their less-than-patient supervisor. His work activities are rather limited by Covid, and as for everyone, many things must be done via the internet which would be much more effective in person.

In the last lockdown and the months that followed it, just when our church was wondering and praying about how we could support local people and meet community needs during Covid, a burnt out van sitting in an Oxgangs carpark was graffitied with the gut-wrenching message: “We cannot even feed our kids.” It soon became clear that food poverty was a very pressing local issue. Matt was able to respond to this need on behalf of our church, other local churches, and a collaboration of other partnering organisations. At the moment, every week he buys a stash of fresh food for around 15 families who have been affected by Covid and sets about delivering it along with non-perishable staples donated by partnering groups. He is on first name terms with the Aldi staff now! As a church we are praying about some exciting possibilities to develop this support in a more long term, sustainable way. Watch this space! It is such a privilege for Matt to be part of feeding the hungry as a facet of his job, and we’re grateful for the generosity of those who partner with and support the church’s work to make this possible. So grateful too, that we can feed our own children as a result of that job!

Speaking of children, our three are doing well. Trying to achieve any online learning according to the expectations of the school somehow seems to be extremely stressful and fraught with frustrations, even though the school have done a great job at keeping things manageable and accessible. We have noticed though that when we do our own thing a bit more (eg. let’s make rainbow pancakes because we saw some on YouTube), invent our own lessons that work better across our three age categories (eg. let’s label things in the house in Spanish), or that make the most of natural opportunities (eg. SNOW DAY!) things are MUCH more peaceful. This is encouraging for potential home schooling in future!

Ben continues to do well too. We’re only 15 minutes’ drive from the hospital where he receives treatment, so still very much within reach. He had a nasty lung infection that landed him in in hospital for a week before Christmas, but thanks to praying friends and the accurate hunch of Ben’s consultant, it was quickly treated and righted. We’re so pleased the most intensive part of his treatment is behind us, and we’re eternally grateful that the cancer is out of sight now, but honestly, the road ahead does still feel rather long sometimes. The cancer is no longer affecting Ben’s health but the chemo definitely is. Even after nearly a year on maintenance Ben remains very sensitive to chemo levels and it doesn’t take much to knock him off course so that his blood counts dip and he gets ill. It’s a constant balance between giving him as much chemo as possible to prevent the cancer returning, and keeping levels low enough to avoid making him permanently ill. We thought the need to keep tweaking this balance might have settled down by now but it’s not looking likely to stabilise any time soon. A doctor told us recently that we could expect even more fevers and infections in Ben’s final year of treatment (which starts from November this year) – not very encouraging news.

Still, most of the time Ben feels well and is able to live a fairly normal life – lockdown aside. He likes our new home and he has been making the most of colouring, painting, playing the piano, and any baking opportunities since home learning started. (My homelearning motto: if in doubt, bake.) He’s looking forward to starting at his new nursery when schools reopen again.

So, we’ve landed and we’re grateful and glad. We fully intend to make this our home for at least the next few years, and that stability feels good. Ultimately, Mexico is still on our hearts. Occasionally (after reading books about intrepid missionaries in jungles, for example) I find myself gazing out at snow covered hills in the distance, and I half-close my eyes (you know, to obscure the lights of Tesco) and imagine those peaks are the mountains of some exotic far off land, and that the city twinkling before me is an unexplored Latin city laced with jungle and ripe with people and adventures and different cultures and language and tacos…and I sigh, because I’m not that good at waiting, really. But then I remember the main pull of those dreams is to live a life of showing love to the poor, and I can do that right here, right now, too. And as it happens, even with Tesco firmly in my eye line; there are new people, adventures, different cultures, languages, and even tacos ripe for the plucking here, right on our doorstep. Even if current hopes for our Oxgangs life come to nothing, the clear sense we felt from God that for now, THIS is where we need to be, with these people, is deeply reassuring. And despite my ever present hunger for international shores, that is good enough for me. Wherever God wants me right now is exactly where I want to be.

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

The Methodist Covenant Prayer