One Year

Just over a year ago I packed up shop and went to live in London. With a two year university intermission in my metaphorical pocket, and not a whole lot of cash in my actual wallet, I lugged my whole life: 20 kilos of clothes and 12 kilos of photography gear, to a garden room in a smelly flat in North London.

It was one of those trips that can only be taken by putting on my blinkers, and being really, really optimistic.

Economic crisis? She'll be right.

Lack of cash? Well lentils and oats stretch a long way.

No family or friends over there? That's what Skype's for. Right? Right?


I took my CV, and distributed it to every recruitment agent that ever was, taking spelling and typing tests suitable for an eight year old (and not a bright one, at that), and pretending that a receptionist/envelope stuffer/cold caller was my life's ambition.

In between the kick in the stomach which is interviewing/waiting for interviews/chasing agents for interviews, I got acquainted with London.

If London were a person, it would be that slightly uppity professor/neighbour/great uncle that every knows. Prickly, unwelcoming, and just a little bit scummy on the outside. But if you spend some time with him and persevere, also full of stories, and history, always interesting, diverse, even, dare I cliche it, a whole bucketful of unexpected beauty.

I missed my sister, and my best friends like crazy, but somewhere in between surviving, then living, then travelling, a year passed. Now I'm actually in a place where, if I had the inkling, I could become one of the those smugly reflective people. Mwa ha ha ha. You know, the one's who come back home after a gap year/overseas interning/volunteering in a Far Away Location or Poor Place and hang around at summer BBQs like a bad smell, ready to snarl you into their trap of rosy reminiscing and philosophising if you even hint over a sausage that you ever had the urge to trave overseas.

Sorry, that's not the point. The point is...I'm yet to discover a point. But you're welcome to browse through these pointless ramblings in the meantime.