CRASH 2

 

There has been something dramatic in the air. I had a bad ending to my working week last week. A meeting that went badly which left me feeling I needed to get ready for a fight - to 'lawyer up', figuratively at least. I had been needing the weekend and looking forwards to being allowed out of town again but the whole work thing put a damper on it and left me pissed off and unable to sleep.

The next day I felt tired and dispirited. So much so I sent Peter off to play with Nick for the day and had a lame run around Arthur's Seat, and did what I could to help myself feel better. I had a better night's sleep that night so me and P went off to park at Longniddry and run into Gullane. I had aspirations to run 13 or 14 miles but actually felt tired and stiff. I had new Hokas on (the Evo Mafates) and they felt really stiff and were threatening to aggravate my achilles. Peter tricked me into taking a diversion along Postman's Walk at the back of Aberlady. Holly Blue Butterflies came out of the woodwork - by woodwork I mean trees - we stalled, the sun was out, Peter was in raptures. I wasn't minding standing about in a sunny corner of a field. The birds and blue skies and flowers and things give you perspective. I only had my wee crappy camera so my pics weren't great.

We did about 6 miles, not 14. Still,  it was a better day and I was more relaxed and slept better that night, although in no way looking forwards to the coming week - there was a long shadow cast over it.

But the next morning when I logged on remotely there was an email from my manager acknowledging  at least some of it. It was something. I felt better. Maybe this is going to be workable. I would still like to win the lottery - or find a new and better job, but it wasn't so bad.

I had been excited by the prospect of the coming Supermoon as I have a more super camera now and even thought if it was a clear night I might go up Arthur's Seat and capture it rising in the east. It was not to be though - it was a grey, drizzly day. Just before I went to bed, however, someone knocked on the window. At first I ignored it, but then curiousity got the better of me. I pulled up the blinds, and there, amid swirling clouds, was a big stonker of a full moon. The trouble with taking a picture of the moon is the light balance. The contrast is too much between the dark sky and the shiny moon so all the shots come out crap unless you use a tripod for a longer exposure or else zoom in for a close up. I've got heaps of these close-ups now and although they're good they don't give any context. What I wanted to show about this moon was that it was a big one. It was late and I was tired and I wasn't setting up the tripod so I snapped a few pics and went off to bed. I had to be up early because there was an engineer coming to fit us up with a new high-powered hose of internet, and I had to be up and about as PB always finds a way to dodge these things.

The next day the fitting of the new internet went fine and pretty soon we were swimming and diving in a fine, fast flowing river of sparkling gigabytes. At night we watched the film Stowaway as it was recommended by Nick. I was deeply unimpressed with the characters in the film who, apart from one, met difficulty with what seemed to me to be a resolute defeatism. They commenced the hand-wringing much too early. The next day I went out for a run and while I was running I was thinking about what bothered me about the film. I found I kept thinking back to the film Crash, which although flawed, seemed to follow the opposite arc - that there is something in people that rises to a crisis. I had a good run, and I was feeling buoyant. When I got in I had some lunch and looked up Crash on YouTube. I was looking at the 6 minute clip in which Matt Dillon, a kind-of bad cop, is making a serious attempt to rescue a woman who he has previously mistreated.  It's a highly dramatic scene in which she is upside down in a car with "gasoline" dripping down all around her - clearly the car can explode into flames at any moment. You can watch it here. Now as I was watching this I smelled hot plastic and for a moment I thought that the new, strong flow of internet was too much for my tired old PC and was over-heating it. Then I thought it was much more likely that I'd left the grill on when making my lunch so I ran through to the kitchen to see. All was well there - so maybe the neighbours were burning something - it isn't unusual - so I looked out the flat door to see.

We live in a third, floor flat in the middle, so our flat is right at the top of the stairs. I opened the door and saw that there was thick, black, smoke billowing up the stair-well. Holy Shit.  5000GHz of adrenaline flooded my system. Well to be truthful I don't know how to measure adrenaline so that will do. A run-away train of adrenaline hit me - the whole fucking building is properly on fire. I've done a lot of fire training during my time working in the hospital and been in a few fires. So you have to make sure help is coming, and then you have to have as many barriers between you and flames as possible, and it's usually the smoke that kills you. Black smoke was belching into the hall as I backed up into this room which is where I work and blog and eat lunch and watch Crash Films. I had to open the window because the room was slowly filling with smoke too, even though I knew that I was likely drawing the smoke up the stairwell and into the flat - there was just no way I could breathe it. It was that stinking, hot, plastic smoke. 

So then I'd say I spent about half an hour hyperventilating with my head out the window and taking in the scene below. I could hear the fire engines coming. They'd said on the phone "The fire service are aware" and I'd left the conversation at that. Peter remarked recently that he'd seen the fire brigade having to go round a long diversion because of the tram works on Leith Walk and he'd remarked bitterly (he hates the trams as do I) "The trams will probably kill a few more people". I saw them come up Pilrig Street and then head up the narrow section of Leith Walk which is still open and then could hear them going away into the distance. They'd have to go up to London Road and along and back down Easter Road to get to Iona Street. In the mean-time smoke was pouring past my head - a head that I was just about keeping. I was still in my running kit and my stocking feet and I realised that one way or another I'd have to evacuate so I needed to be organised. Shoes on feet. I had my duvet jacket, my Cashline, my passport and my phone in the room so I put them in my jacket pockets and put my jacket on. My keys were in the kitchen and now out of reach, through the thick smoke, so I wouldn't be leaving with keys. 

Having done everything I could to be ready I got back to cleaner air at the window and the action outdoors. By now the street was full of fire appliances and also police and some ambulances. I could see that things were happening downstairs but I couldn't hear what was being said and I didn't know what was happening. A fireman looked up at me and gave me a thumbs up which was somewhat reassuring but I didn't know if they knew how much smoke was up here. I saw some burning things dragged out from our close - the blackened skeleton of our neighbour Rose's walker and some charred planks of wood. It was looking like it was a fire in the close. The cherry picker thing on the top of one of the fire-engines had started to move and was coming up to my height. Was I going out the window? I was going out the window. It was pretty surreal. I knew Peter would be annoyed I hadn't taken photos but at this stage it just would have seemed inappropriate to be taking burning building selfies - plus my heart was still banging and I was still hyperventilating. It would have been a work out. Pity I didn't have my Garmin on. It's not easy to get out a window and onto a platform. I had to kind of roll out onto the ledge and then get a hand up from the fireman.  It was strange to be out and over the street and above the fire-engines and police and the Leith drinkers sitting out at the tables in front of the Strathie Bar watching the show. Pubs having only just opened again - all the tables were full despite it being a Wednesday afternoon.

When I landed back on terra firma I was sent over to the ambulances just to get checked over. My heart was still banging and my breathing was still fast. One of the ambulance men said to me it was "just anxiety" and not for the first time that week a sharp retort rose up in my throat, "you try getting trapped in a burning building with black smoke all around you on the third floor and no idea what's going on and see if you're fucking anxious matey." I didn't say it though.  I think he realised. He added the word "understandably".

I stood about then, on the far side of the road, in a bit of a daze. An old charge nurse, Alan,  from the Royal Ed happened along - which was fun. Talking to him kept me busy and diverted while waiting to get back in. 

I'd mentioned to the Fire Brigade that I didn't have my keys and they said they'd do what they could. I'm not entirely sure how they did it, but after a while a female fire-lady came over and handed me my keys. I think I said I loved her. Well I did. How nice was that? They'd opened all the windows wide to clear the smoke. Finally I was allowed back in. "It's worse than it looks" said the fireman leading me back up and then we both laughed - he meant the opposite obviously. The lights were burned out so the hall and stair were a black sooty hole with black puddles collected on the ground floor and the stench of a recent fire.

So after that I sat about in a trance for a fair bit and googled "Leith Fire" to see if there were any photos. Disappointingly there were none with me in so I've used some artistic licence and popped myself in the pictures.

That's me gratefully being rescued. Actually I had to stay back in case the cherry picker when through the window by accident.

That's me coming down in the picker. If you look closely you can see that I'm casually eating an ice-cream.

Okay Mary (I hear you say) that was a very good story but it was a lot and you're going to have to wind it up. 

Oh well - this. Yesterday me and Peter and Nick went a PROPER Gullane run, the full 14 miles this time. I was probably a bit loud. I had a lot of steam to blow off. Happily I think they're both used to it. In the last few miles Peter tricked us back to Butterfly Boulevard and we were rewarded with a little butt action.

And tomorrow is a public holiday, so although it is getting late on a Sunday, I do not have the end of weekend blues. And I slept like a baby last night. Hallelujah. Thanks for reading this far.

UPDATE - this has been bugging me but I think I've just found my answer. I thought that I recognised the lady fire-woman who handed me my keys. I thought it was a runner called Sarah Scott who I've seen around and Peter knows a bit better. I've seen her running hard round Arthur's Seat recently. I had a wee google to see if I could find out on Wednesday,  but I found a thing about her saying she does gait analysis for Run and Become, so I thought I'd just been a bit crazy because of the adrenaline - but then when I was out running today, she went past on her bike and gave me a big wave. She got a bit wave back and once again I was thinking "Was it her?" How do you find out if someone's a fire person? Ahah! So I googled "Sarah Scott, Fire Brigade" and it is her - she graduated with the service in 2019. If you should happen across this Sarah, thanks so much! You're a legend!