Leaving London

It’s funny. Whenever I think about the final days of London and what they’ll be like, I am pinched by a feeling of nostalgia. I am a sentimental person at the best/worst of times and I already feel a small sadness when I imagine walking or driving past certain places for the last time.

Living in London has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. No physical challenge or trauma could ever compete with the mentally and emotionally debilitating effect the London life has had on me. Perspectives become twisted and shattered like a kaleidoscope of opinions and emotions. Mostly I didn’t know if I was happy, sad, angry, tired or bursting with energy, no doubt all of them at various times, but damned if I know when and at what time. London is not a place to live (for me anyway), it is like a sociological experiment, done by a nine year old boy with a chemistry set who doesn’t want to read the instructions but throw it all in and see what happens (hoping desperately for explosions and puffs of blue smoke). The city has evolved like a patchwork quilt, each patch representing a moment in history or government decision that throws another chemical into the test tube.

London is described as one of the great cities of the world. When I imagine a great city of the world I think of organisation, progress, planning, co-ordination, a distinct and tangible culture that can be taken away and remembered, even a sense of community among the inhabitants of ‘the great city’. Whilst London probably does have some of these features, they certainly aren’t the first things one would note. In fact it is the lack of them that makes London such a remarkable city. My favourite thing about London is the diversity. Nowhere else in the world have I seen the mix of cultures that London has. I imagine somewhere like New York might do, but there would be something different about it – they would be trying to be Americans. It is the non-nationalism of so many of Londoners that I enjoy – you can be a Londoner, but still be Polish, Indian or Portuguese – you don’t have to adopt the stereotypical lifestyle of the country you live in. You can share your culture and people can experience it without needing to leave the city. Which reminds me of the first thing I thought when I arrived here – this really is a global city.

So while I find every day a struggle, the monotony of a rising, working, eating and sleeping in the cold grey grumbling behemoth, I’m not totally unaware of the other colours and flavours dancing around in the belly of this beast and always find myself observing them all, much like that nine year old boy and his chemistry set, quietly hoping for fireworks.

Crossroads (of the Britney Spears variety of course)

Do we all want a special place that is just our own, somewhere that we love more than anyone else thereby giving us some form of ownership over it, and it in turn some sort of ownership over us?

I use the term ‘place’ loosely. That could be a person, a concept, a location, an activity, or whatever.

This little post might not make much sense, it all kind of fell out of my head – as the posts usually do – so expect the same level of coherence and structured thought….

Whenever I hear people talk of planned travel to South America I am stung with something, I don’t know if it’s jealousy or some other emotion sprouting from the concern that they won’t see the South America I saw, that they won’t speak to people and take the uncomfortable option, or more accurately the option that the South Americans are forced to take because they can’t afford the ‘luxury’ option that tourists take. That was a long sentence. I fear that if they don’t learn the language and stroll into that continent speaking English and waving money around it is going to ruin such a beautiful place. It is something that I was very aware of while we travelled through it, the impact that we were having by being naïve and comparatively wealthy was minor in comparison to what had gone before and what was to come. I felt twinges of resentment to those people who pigeon holed us as wealthy tourists (we were wealthy in comparison to the poverty of course, but not in comparison to other travellers), but you can’t blame someone with very little for going to every effort to part a tourist from their money – whether it be through dishonest means or otherwise. I blame the people who wave their money around, eating wherever and whenever they want, staying in comfortable accommodation, catching taxis because it is too much hassle to carry a suitcase on a crowded train or they feel ‘unsafe’. If people want to shove their wealth into the faces of people who’ll never have the opportunity to take the luxury option then I don’t think they deserve to taste a culture other than their own insulated greed. I’m not saying I’m perfect in this regard, anyone who thinks they can live up to the virtues they extol are obviously not extolling enough, and have no ideals to strive to live up to. I’m going on a tangent now. I’ll get back to my point.

There is a possibility that I will be faced with a cross road in the near future. Lucas’s job with Visa looks like it might open a door to employment in the Middle East – Dubai to be precise. There is a chance that he’ll be offered a job there starting in September, which, if the terms are right, he will accept. And fair enough too, the chance to live and travel through the Middle East and learn Arabic for a year is not one to be passed up.

So if the job is offered and subsequently taken I will be at the aforementioned crossroads. There would be options galore - where would I go and what would I do. Well, anyone remember the WHO plan? Something I looked into a few months back was the chance to volunteer or work in Africa. As it happened I found a program based in Zambia (and other countries) educating the local community about health (with a specific focus on AIDS). I won’t go into the details but it would be an 8 month position in a community working with another volunteer (a Zambian national) to deliver the program, finishing in August next year – about the time that Lucas’s 12 month contract in Dubai would apparently finish. I haven’t committed to anything, it is just one of many options.

I keep going on tangents. Anyway. I have been reading what these volunteers have said after they get back from their time in Africa. The two main themes shining through is the lesson they have learnt that life in the West is too complicated, and so wildly and unnecessarily overdeveloped, and secondly the love they feel for Africa and the desire to go back and keep contributing to that society there. The first lesson is not something that I think I would need to learn – there wouldn’t be many greater advocates than I of razing every city to the ground and moving the world forward to a community based agrarian society, with an evolved ethical outlook of course – now that is development. The second one struck a nerve with me though and is the reason for this little soliloquy. As I mentioned, I was smitten with South America – almost certainly in a different way to how these volunteers feel about Africa, would I feel the same way after such a program? Or would I feel the same as I do about South America, despair at watching something you cherish be destroyed. But I refer to my opening words now and wonder, am I looking for my place, that only I know and knows me?

'cause we got a little ole convoy rockin' thru the night

convooooy!

Back from a glorious week of truck driving and furniture moving in the south of France. How good it felt to spend a week working and actually enjoying it!

The opportunity came through the husband of one of my colleagues (Allison in the photos). There is a company here called 'Aussie man and van', which Steve, the husband, worked for. Note 'worked'. He quit after an altercation with his boss, but put in a sneaky phone call to some clients he had lined up and offered to do the job for them anyway - VAT free. Of course he needed an assistant who was dedicated to the art of lifting heavy things and my name was put forward, an offer was made and I duly accepted - 5 days of truckin' and liftin' in the warmth of the French Riviera for a tidy sum.

We spent most of last Tuesday filling the back of the 7.5 tonne truck with a huge amount of brand new Laura Ashley beds, wardrobes, shelves etc etc, enough to fill her newly purchased villa on the slopes overlooking Bargemon (little town about 45 minutes from the sea). She also wanted a Ford Explorer moved down there, which was to be the vehicle I drove down. The drive goes through Dover (white cliffs appearing much greyer in the fog and rain of England), across the channel on the ferry to Calais and then 11 hours drive through Paris and Lyon, bypassing Marseille and turning off just before Nice. Arrival in Calais was at 11pm and managed to get to about 200km short of Lyon by 4am when we pulled over and passed out in our seats for a couple of hours.

I had a temperature guage in the Explorer and the whole journey to that point the temperature had varied between five and eight degrees and raining....I was starting to get concerned about the warm weather and sunny skies I had expected. Sure enough, as we passed through Lyon the clouds vanished and temperature slowly started to climb, just after the Marseille turn-off the guage hit 20C, the warmest weather I have felt for 7 months, it shortly afterwards hit the maximum for the day of 21C, hooray! I also started to get a small dose of driver's forearm (those of you who drive in sunny climates will know what I mean), hooray!

After winding our way along some archetypal european bendy roads through the Riviera hinterland I was struck by how similar the countryside is to my beloved Biddaddaba. The rolling soft browns and earthy colours set against a brilliant blue sky made my spirit soar with that feeling of freedom and being in the 'real' world again - people were wearing clothes designed for outdoors living, practical clothing. It is easy to forget in London that a place like this doesn't just exist in my dreams.

So in singlet and shorts we unloaded the truck, pausing overnight to sleep and eat and visit the town, finishing the job just after midday the following day. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and lazing in the sun with a beer in one hand and a book in the other.

I'd better get this post finished - I'm actually busy at work now - new job etc.

We stayed in a hotel that night, collected more stuff the following morning, drove back to London. It was cloudless skies until we reached the channel. We could see the big Welcome Home clouds looming as we approached. Sure enough, cold, rain and fog set in as we boarded the ferry. Arriving back in London around 3am we slept at Steve's house and then finished the job the in the morning - having a big brekkie to finish off the week and I returned to Kilburn for a weekend of celebrating birthdays and a pagan fertility festival.

And we can climb onto our big flat roof if we unscrew our bathroom window - some nice afternoons up there I suspect.

Charteris Sports Centre

Monday morning. This is the best I have felt on a Monday morning in a long time, because

a) I didn't write myself off on Friday or Saturday
b) I am starting a new job and have something to do
c) I went for a run this morning
d) We found a new gym near our house, which is cheaper and better than Fitness First (not that that is hard).

Did I mention that we had joined a Fitness First around the corner from our place? It is the worst excuse for a gym I have ever seen - full of treadmills and airwalkers and reclined bikes - all designed for people who don't want to work hard and just be seen in their designer gym clothes. I won't even describe how bad the weights section was - actually I will. There was barely room to swing a barbell let alone two people to swing barbells. There wasn't even a squat rack. A smith machine (barbell on runners) that the guys used for bench pressing (gives an allusion of lifting more weight so you look strong), and assorted pin loaded machines designed to do nothing other than strain tendons and ligaments. After each gym session I felt completely unexhausted and frustrated with the mentality of a gym that would be more aptly named 'Image First'.

So we walked down to the Charteris Sports Centre yesterday - recently dicovered and closer to our house. It has a perfect selection of weights (less equipment, but the right equipment - nothing uneccesary). It also has a basketball court! Had a session yesterday and got a pump like I haven't had for weeks and am raring to go again this evening.

Just wanted to express the joy of finding a cheap down to earth honest to goodness gym - and when I saw the seated calf raise it was the icing on the cake - dreaming of the searing pain I could inflict on my soleus.