Apartment in the Sky

Our little apartment, and I do mean little, sits high above a shiny-bricked lane which itself shoots off one of Kiel’s prettiest main streets. We live, essentially, in an attic, sloping ceilings and all. If you shove open one of the sloping windows and stick your head out, like a mole popping up among a sea of red tile, you can see the wharf and when the huge cruisers move out, their horns reverberate through the city. All of this makes for a very European, dare I say romantic setting for this Kiel jaunt – it also makes for utter, irrational fury every time I bump my head on the bedroom ceiling. And very little storage space.

But one of the many things that makes up for having to scuttle around the loft bedroom in a permanent crouch (quite apart from the apartment’s excellent location) are the skies we get. Not just get, but feel a part of, so high are we squirreled away up here. As winter slowly, begrudgingly and most curmudgeonly drags its sorry self out of shot to give Spring its moment in the spotlight, the sky can’t quite decide what to do. And our big windows slant so as to offer nothing but blank patches of that sky, be it pink, blue or slate. It all depends on what time of day I pop out with the camera, like a mole among the red tiles.

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