Sunshine and saints alive

It’s stinky sweaty hot in London right now and its been this way for several weeks. Frankly, if it carries on any longer we might actually have to start calling it a summer. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Only in London could pubs and flower
baskets seem such natural companions

It’s been a strange, busy, exhausting couple of weeks – the heat not helped by the cold I seem to be coming down with – or the fact that Lovely Boy and I have finally called time on London, having made the humongous decision to go back to Sydney at the end of October. I sobbed telling work, absolutely well and truly lost my shit about it. There was not a single toy left in the pram because I love the people I work with and I love my job (case in point: they were amazing and supportive and inspired and wonderful.)

Dear London, we need to talk

Dear London,

Don’t think this letter isn’t hard to write. It is. I’m surprised at how hard it is because it turns out my feelings for you have grown profoundly over the last five years and I would call it love. I do love you London. But we both always knew it wouldn’t be forever.

I wish I didn’t have to break it off (not least because I typically prefer the exquisite agony of the dumped to the all-consuming guilty relief of the dumpee…) but don’t you agree its best we part as friends, with fond memories intact, on good, nay great, terms and happy in the knowledge that we really gave it a go and for a while it was wonderful. Because it was. It is. It’s just time we started seeing other cities.

Lido love

I miss swimming. I miss ocean swimming, I miss outdoor, non-chlorinated swimming. I miss having no excuse not to go swimming...

All of which is a whiny roundabout way of telling you I went swimming this morning and I freaking loved it. I've ditched Camberwell Leisure Centre, as clean and relatively convenient as it is because I haven't swum outdoors since Mexico and deep in my bones I need to be back in the water and under an expanse of (blue but grey will do if it must) sky.

The art of Peckham

After all the gallivanting of late I was pretty excited to have a weekend kicking about in London – especially now that summer has announced itself with ferocious good will.

This last weekend has been about two things mostly: Peckham. And Art. And not just because I had to work on Saturday afternoon…

Bold Tendencies, 2013

As all weekends do, this one kicked off on Friday evening. I’d managed to guilt Lovely Boy into joining me for post-work drinks in Peckham. His “but it’s just so…. far….” line didn’t really garner much sympathy. 

Me: “Oh you mean that journey that I make twice a day five days a week? That one? Too far? Really?”

Him: "...I'll meet you there." 

The pleasure that is Paris

“I’m not sure I can be bothered with Paris.”

Said my lovely, lovely husband on the eve of another decadent weekend away. I mean, talk about first world problem, talk about fucking sacrilege, more like.

I'm developing an unhealthy obsession with Paris doors

Last weekend we were in Reykjavik with LB’s parents, several weeks before that we were traipsing through France and Italy with my parents and this weekend just gone we’ve been in Paris, with my aunt and uncle on their virgin European adventure. I get the exhaustion – I myself may have also complained about it in recent weeks – but BUCK UP kiddo, it’s PARIS! And I love Paris, even when it’s nine degrees and raining.

Reykjavik

So Reykjavik is a funny little place. And I’m being literal about the little. Perhaps my expectations of a European capital city have been mis-managed after jaunts to Berlin, Istanbul, you know, Paris, but Reykjavik, as I suppose naturally befits the capital of a country where there are more sheep than people, is small, kooky, quiet and strangely, wonderfully contradictory.

Inside Harpa, Reykjavik

First class problems.

I was on the bus this morning, on my way to work, blah blah blah, on the phone to my sister.

Her: How are you?

Me: Oh, I don’t know. Tired. Hormonal. Busy. Distracted. In need of another day of nothing but we’re away this weekend in Reykjavik and away next weekend in Paris, which I’m really looking forward to but I’m going to be so tired.

(Pause.)

Me again: I know, I know, my life is a series of first-world problems. I should just shut the fuck up.

Her: No, no. Reykjavik one weekend, Paris the next – that’s not a first world problem. That’s a first class problem. So yes. Shut the fuck up.

Did I mention I’m off to Reykjavik on Friday with Lovely Boy and his parents? Whale watching, blue lagooning, eating, wandering. If only all my first-world problems were this awesome.

Sunshine. And a look back at Venice.

It’s a beautiful, nay, glorious day here in London. It’s hot. As in SUNNY. You know, Properly Warm. And SUNNY, did I mention that? And so what have we done?

This isn't London. Obviously.

Absolutely nothing.