Twenty years ago, I lived in Torry, right on the junction between Balnagask Road and Victoria Road. I loved it. It was one of those periods when things align and all your friends are within a couple of streets of you. I met my husband because I got talking to his best mate on the number 3 bus up to Altens.
I didn't get the bus home from work, though. Every day, I walked down the hill and back along through Balnagask. There was something about the odd, elongated cereal box houses crammed on the side of the hill that I found fascinating. I would take different tiny paths between the rows of houses, nip up and down the steep steps which linked the streets. There were always people sitting in the damp, dark little gardens which had been hollowed out of the hill, and there was this strange contrast between a sense of community and a feeling of claustrophobia and overcrowding.
It doesn't feel overcrowded any more. Now that RAAC has been found in the roofs - the roofs which only slope in one direction, down towards the primary school and the railway - the houses are due for demolition. Most of them are empty now. I walked around for an hour and saw two gas engineers and a postie. Some robins, a few oystercatchers. And a lot of abandoned sofas.
