How in god's name has the last month gone as quickly as it has? Fucking hell - that's all I have to say. And please, don't make me go...
Am back to London tomorrow and feel a curious mix of excitement and utter desperation at having to say goodbye. It's truly a case of, well, I would be excited to go if it didn't mean leaving.
In the interests though of 2009, hopefully The Optimistic Year, and of making it somewhat easier to walk through the departure gate tomorrow (Mum's Crying Is Only Permitted Between the Hours of 2pm and 3pm rule will no doubt also help) I think a list is essential. A list of Things I like about London. So here goes...
1. It is highly unlikely that the temperature will ever soar high enough to make my eyeliner smudge to the point of two black eyes
2. A non-existent UV rating means less vigilante-like behaviour when it comes to the factor 50+ sunscreen and vampiric-like hunting for shade
3. There are good museums and art and "stuff"
4. It is close to Europe - Greece for Easter, school trip to Venice, weekend in Barcelona - it does have a certain poetry to it
5. No screeching psychotic cockatoos in the backyard
There are probably others if I really thought about it but five seems like a solid kind of number so I might just leave it there. The point was in the exercise surely and not the outcome?
In truth I am looking forward to seeing the girls at home again, and my school chums and to school generally though I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of how busy the next nine months are going to be, especially in light of the last month - which has been glorious in its nothingness.
Days on the boat....
Nights on the harbour....
Early evenings on the beach...
And the lovely weddings of lovely friends in the lovely sunshine...
And all while in the bosom of the family. I can't tell you how I've missed the boisterous madness that is my nearest and dearest. Juvenile dinner table conversation, serious discussions about how to spend a hypothetical $30 million lottery win, laughter, swims, cheese and wine and a front verandah with sit-in-me-forever chairs under a starry Sydney night. It's been so, SO good.
What I've realised most about being home, and what I love so dearly about Sydney is the space - the geographical space, the airspace, the head space, not so much the parking space, but just the general sense of freedom and ease that comes with living here. Something desperately absent from Encroach Upon Me London. How to remedy this when I'm back I'm not entirely sure - yoga perhaps or an amble through Hampstead Heath once a week. I don't know. But I do know it's something I'm going to have to work out because I don't think I can justify a fornightly weekend in Portugal. Though goodness I'd like to try...
Strangely I haven't spent as much time as I imagined I might at Bondi while I've been home. I think in some small part because when it looks like this - drowned in people....
Well, it reminds me of London. And not just because most of those thousands of people are themselves English.
It's late here so I should probably go and finish packing. My frigging suitcase looks like one of those ridiculous sandwiches you get at trendy gourmet cafes - splayed open and piled high with too much shit to actually be able to close, thus sending the goats cheese and baby spinach straight down the front. It's a good look. Right up there with the public re-pack at the check-in desk when said sandwiched suitcase hovers 5-10kg above the weight restriction. Something to look forward to tomorrow.
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