20/20 Vision

A soft blue light loitered around the edges of the river, shifting bleakly amongst the afternoon snow. The river trundled by, aloof, gargling a befuddled ditty to itself and sending a shiver through the long grey heron that sat perched on a nearby rock. The heron glared at me when I spied it – clearly, in no mood to be bothered. That was fine. Neither was I.

The beautiful city of Edinburgh had captured me in its frozen economic tendrils a few months earlier. Waitressing hours had petered out after the mediocre Christmas rush and the real threat of homelessness and permanent unemployment had settled ominously over my head. In lieu of anything practical to do, wandering the city with a second-hand camera and a miserable countenance was always an option. Pushing against the snow flurries, putting my welly boots through the skin of ice that covered every puddle on the way – it wasn’t long before I received only radio silence from my toes but hell, you’d stop appreciating that soft feather duvet of yours or the wonders of hot water coming straight out the tap if you didn’t, on the odd occasion, set out to make yourself thoroughly uncomfortable.

St Bernard’s Well reared up on my left – a stunning piece of Victorian neo-classical architecture, tottering on the edge of the Water of Leith just 5 minutes from my tiny flat in Dean Village. Edinburgh never ceased to amaze me. But in that moment, I felt a very real stab of resentment towards my own country for putting me in this horrible and unfair position, and I really hated being made to feel like that.

I was huddled beneath my mosquito net deep in the Amazon rainforest, terrified at the night-time grumbles of the jungle erupting around the feeble wooden hut, the giant insects crawling all over the floor and up the walls and the possibility of hungry jaguars prowling outside. The guide had told us that the camp keeper was eaten by jaguars two months before we arrived. Talk about making yourself uncomfortable, Blackwood. Will this do?

Edinburgh was my home and my true love. But over a year and a half spent there after graduating, and I had nothing to show for it. I had become decidedly uncomfortable in an entirely different way - uncomfortable with sitting still, waiting on the economy to get a bit better on the off-chance that I could nip in and get myself a mediocre office temp job for less than 15k a year. No. That’s not what I spent 4 years at university to achieve. Life is just too short.

Nobody is too privileged to be eaten by jaguars. The last thing I intended to do was spend the next year unemployed or waitressing while the job market continued to vomit out the half-digested remnants of the last 10 years of corporate malpractice.

It was DEFINITELY time to leave.