When I first moved to a city, after university, I could not get used to sooty streets that the sun never reached and to people hurrying past head-down as if intent on avoiding eye contact. That was Edinburgh in the 1980s which, in those days, except during the Festival, was hardly the most buzzing metropolis on the planet.

At every opportunity I headed for the hills, so I would have guffawed if you’d told me that one day I would choose to live in a Glasgow flat with a G1 postcode. Edinburgh was bad enough but Glasgow, or so its reputation went, was as built-up, polluted and scary as Saigon.

How wrong I was. When I started at The Herald, I felt at home immediately, both at the paper and in the city. You might even say I fell in love with the place, with the result that a few years later, my husband and I bought a flat in the Merchant City, in an old renovated building in Ingram Street. The City Chambers was just round the corner. Short of pitching a tent in George Square, you don’t get much more central than that.

For the first few years, I couldn’t believe how lucky I felt. There were cafes, music venues, bookshops and bars. In our three-storey block there were young single professionals and retired couples. Occasionally I’d find myself in the lift with an Old Firm footballer on his way out for breakfast, since the most deluxe flats were designed without proper kitchens, on the assumption that the people who could afford them would eat out or order in. Our neighbours were sociable, enjoying what the city had to offer in the way of entertainment and stimulation. Only one thing felt strange: there were more dogs - some handbag-sized - than........

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