Growing Up

Ma & Pa getting hitched in NYC, 1975. How cool is that hat?!

I've been thinking a lot about getting older recently.

Being at my mum's house a few weekends ago and seeing some old photos of her and my dad has got me thinking a lot about my roots. Mum was excited at having found old photos, mainly because we lost so many precious ones to the swirling, destructive winds of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. She showed me photos of my parents at my age. At my age, my mother had already done two huge life moves, from London to Trinidad and then to Miami. I wondered at her bravery, and at her ability to adapt.

As I get older, and hurtle towards my 30th birthday in August, I'm finding that I feel rather reflective. I start to notice my face changing - the smile lines are just a little bit more pronounced around my eyes, and I can see my skin is changing. New freckles I hadn't noticed before begin to appear. But I'm trying not to indulge in too much gazing in the mirror, and it doesn't consume as much of my time as it did in my early 20s, that's for sure. A cursory once-over is enough in the mornings, mostly to make sure I haven't got toothpaste all over my chin. No, the days of high-preening are probably behind me now.

I challenge anyone to spot any wrinkles from here...

I have started to notice a common theme amongst friends and colleagues who are all approaching this pivotal age - they are all planning to change their lives somehow, whether it's new house, new job, new partner, new baby, or new business. 30, unlike 18 or 21, or even 25, is the beginning of real adulthood, it feels like. We all have some urgency to our plans now. For some of my female friends, this is even more true, especially where relationships are concerned. Two out of four of my closest female friends are now married and thinking very closely about having children. The other two are well into their 30s and seem much less panicked about making babies. They know it will come. They've gotten over the hump, as it were.

For me, it's only when I have time to sit down and think that I start to make some headway towards deciding what the heck it is that I want. Most of the time, working a full-time job in London feels like playing continual catch-up: with your friends, with your work, with your life admin, with your laundry, with sleeping. It's only by being away from the melée that I start to commit myself to the next thing I want to do. And on holiday a couple of weeks ago, I decided. We decided. We're going to start a small business and rent rooms to weary city-travellers, and put our combined skills of being good hosts (or so we are told), creative marketers and being people-people to use. We need to do bags more research of course, not to mention finalise the city in question, as well as create a business plan, and save up lots of our hard-earned money, but the wheels are in motion - we plan to leave London in March 2013.

It's basically beans on toast from here on in for a while, but I feel so very empowered. A new sense of freedom and the scent of adventure in the distance has completely motivated me. Learning a new language will be part of it, but the ability to work together towards a common goal, in a new place, for our own profit (or possibly loss, in the first few months, I'm not going to shy away from being realistic here) is driving me forward towards the biggest and most frightening, exhilarating step towards adulthood that I have ever taken.

I think that's a good place to be, aged 29 years, 10 months, and 5 days.

The Cautionary Tale of the Fat Grey Seal

I've been quiet for the last month, but that's a good thing, because any posts would have been fantastically dull. I spent much of March applying for a new job (I didn't get it, sadly), working my arse off and earning myself a holiday.

The holiday part is quite good, though. We went to the beautiful West Highlands of Scotland, bathed in sunshine upon our arrival and with temperatures in the high teens (on the first day, anyway). I wore waterproofs and hiking-type shoes almost nonstop, and actually enjoyed it, despite looking frightful in all our holiday snaps.

We walked. A lot. We sailed (well, someone else drove and parked the boat. I know I'm using the wrong words, and I don't care - I know nothing of boats). We watched birds! We saw enormous grey seals! They looked ridiculous! I wouldn't mess with them, though. Those blubbery blighters. Look at that one there, giving us stinkeye. He knew. We would have been happier on his turf. No wonder it was being guarded so carefully.

What?

There was a lot of whisky and cullen skink and Lorne sausages. There was no TV aerial in the flat where we stayed and so we watched some Hitchcock films and - fittingly - the DVD extras on Braveheart. There was also no phone reception to speak of, so it was pretty darned relaxing. I managed to read a lot and the days seemed longer, something I often long for in a normal working week.

It made me think very hard about city living. Without exception, every local we met in the sleepy little Argyll village we stayed in seemed to pity us for living in London. Some had lived and worked here themselves, and had great stories to tell, but none missed it. One couple in their sixties had come back for a holiday and enjoyed themselves, but for the most part the men hated cities and the women got their cultural fixes in Glasgow or from holidays in other places.

I don't think I'm quite ready to live in a place where no shops are open past 6pm (or indeed on Sundays) but it did make me consider what one really needs from the place they live. Something I seem to do regularly each time I leave the city, whether for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. I keep hearing that little voice beckoning me away. And I do wonder if I'd be more productive; maybe writing more, maybe spending more time talking to friends, less time exhausted on the sofa, less time travelling, less time worrying about money.

I know, I know. It's been two years of this love/hate shit with London. Even I'm bored of it now. I'm like a woman scorned who keeps telling her friends he'll change. 


So, definitely time for a new record. This is the last time I say this. Promise. 

It's all gone a bit quiet round here...

That's mainly because I have a new favourite thing, namely: instagram. A little photo-sharing app that lets you run pictures through a series of retro filters, tag them, and share them with online friends. It's insanely addictive. I've probably come to it quite late, as I'm one of the last people I know to have an iphone. But it has certainly been keeping me from blogging. Maybe I can claim I've been micro-blogging, in a way. Oh no, wait - that's twitter. Or maybe I can consider it photo-blogging. Anyway, if you happen to want to follow my feed, you can do so here and find me as @bittersweetcity if you happen to use instagram too.

A new life manifesto, courtesy of instagram?

The other reason it's all been a bit quiet is probably because this is the start of my 30th year and I've become much more focused on the future. There's a pressing need to shake things up this year, which if you've been reading previous posts, you will know has been on the agenda for the Mister and I for almost 3 years now. Careers have really taken over our lives for the past year, but the continued stresses and upheavals felt by changes at my place of work, and the sector itself, are spurring me on to do something different. And I mean it this time. I'm hoping to be able to quit my job by August and with savings, attempt the long-awaited travelling and working abroad scenario I've been going on about on here for years. I'm working on the plan in earnest now. Here are my prequequisites: 

1. Must be French-speaking. I've been sort-of speaking well-ish for coming up to 12 years. It's time to get bloody fluent. Oui, je voudrais parler couramment, quoi.

2. Must be warmer than Britain. 

That's not a lot to ask for, surely(!) I'm considering anything from training for a TEFL course to pouring café lattés in Bordeaux. Or preferably, rum punches in Mauritius.

The thing that scares me the most is waking up on my 30th birthday on August 25th and thinking, "I know exactly what the next 12 months will be like." I am frightened of having everything all planned out, and yet I want to know what I won't be doing this time next year.

It means having to take risks. Scary, but good. It's the last time in my life I think I'll be able to, before I need to consider if, or when, I have children; before I need to make plans to be near my mum, as I'm her only child and she is on her own. I know being free of responsibility sounds selfish, and it's never truly possible. 

But just once I'd like to try it. 

Surely I'm not alone in having thoughts like these. People of the interweb: do you also have them? Have you acted upon them? Better still, have any success stories or tips you can share? I'd be ever so grateful. 

Til' next time (stick around, I feel an increase in productivity coming on ;)...

The Gods of Lust and Money

So: the government wants to measure our happiness. 

We’re supposed to be feeling full of beans in the midst of savage public sector cuts and rising unemployment for women and young people at home, complete chaos in Libya, more earthquakes for an already devastated Japan, predictions for catastrophe in Nepal and increasingly worrying world weather patterns, an indicator that we have really and truly fluffed our best chances of having a sustainable future on this planet. Oh, that and we’re all going to die next year. 

Brill.

There was a time during the past winter when I thought: there must be more than this. Going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, why would I do this? What am I doing here?

Now that Spring is here and the days are longer my thoughts are not quite so downcast. And of course I can appreciate the beauty of a British summer - I love Pimm's, Wimbledon, and have no problem with having a go at Making The Best of It. But as soon as it's not all Darling Buds of May I want to high-tail it out of here and my thoughts continually return to sunnier, more chilled out climes.

Sometimes I feel a bit like a mango in the fresh fruit section of a supermarket (bear with me here) - grown in a hot, tropical place, picked before being fully ripe, and flown over to sit in a chiller in grey old rainy old London-town. (I know, I know, there are better analogies. I can't find one right now though, so we'll leave that terrible one in.)

A Bad Analogy

 Is it London that I'm getting tired of? Maybe if I was living in the countryside the seasons wouldn't be such a mystery and I wouldn't feel so disconnected. But it’s more than the weather – after all, it’s been warm and sunny for the past week and I’ve still felt like I want to run away and bury my head in jam.

No, part of the problem is the feeling that I'm toiling away in the big bad city for, well, not much really.  I’m not managing to save, despite the laughable ‘London weighting’ portion of my salary. I’m not going to be able to buy property here.  I’m disillusioned with my job and the unfettered change that seems to be sweeping the sector. I don’t believe in what I’m being paid to say anymore. But annoyingly, despite being paid more than ever, it’s doing nothing for my happiness (nor my savings – I just seem to spend more). Finally, I’m fed up with fighting elbows, armpits and women with big bamsies (as my dear dad would have called them) on the journey in and out on the bus every day. Let David Cameron commute for a bit (for REAL, Dave, not with the car carrying your briefcase behind you). You stand up among the many baby buggies Cammo, and get jostled for a space to stand, by druggies, whilst listening to EVERYONE ELSE'S MUSIC EVERY MORNING via their ridiculously loud personal headphones. Or worse, their phones, with no attempt to make their musical experience personal at all. 

Not quite the overcrowded number 59 from Streatham, is it Dave?

Of course, I know I should be grateful for small mercies;

• We’ve got a little bit of green space to plant things in.
• My commute does not require taking the underground.
• The new Spanish upstairs neighbours aren’t anywhere near as fat and stompy as the previous ones, and they seem to be much less loud and bonky than in the beginning. 

Not to mention the big things, like:

• We have great friends here.
• I have nice colleagues.
• London is still full of bloody brilliant sights and people and I used to love living here. 

So what’s happened? If anyone out there is experiencing a similar crisis of faith, please share. Did you get over yours? Did you move away to run a knitting group or start a home school or pursue a long-desired career as a beekeeper? I feel I need some help falling in love with London again. 

Especially as we supposedly only have 1 year, 8 months and 4 days to go…

PS. Speaking of crazy bus journeys - check this dude out.

All Change, Please

"This country's seen better days," says the old lady on the bus again, as she steps past us all to alight, tutting to herself. She is wearing a fluorescent shell suit and plenty of gold jewellery. We're speeding up Brixton Hill towards Streatham.

She's just witnessed the same altercation we all have: it's between an overweight, ruddy lady in her forties who clearly needs to cool off, and the small crowd of people (two Spanish dudes in their 20s, chatting away animatedly, an older Rasta man, and the aforementioned old lady) sitting on the back seats behind her who have been getting a chill every time she opens the window. 

Whoosh.

The window opens. We all feel a blast of icy air. It's well after the Friday evening rush hour and the bus driver is going like the clappers, so it feels breezier than it is. It's open maybe a minute and a half before one of the young Spaniards sitting behind the ruddy lady closes it.

THWACK. 

It shuts loudly. (Is there any other way of closing a bus window?)

The ruddy lady looks back in annoyance, but her neck is a bit fat and she can't really see who has closed it. The Spaniards stare back in open defiance. You can hear silent cheers from the others on the back seats. 

She opens it again, but no less than five seconds pass and -WHUMP- it has been shut again. The window is cleverly positioned so that both she and the young Spaniard sitting behind her can control its opening and closing. This little pantomime happens maybe three or four times. You can almost hear the audience joining in.

"OH YES it is open!"

"OH NO it isn't!"

"Can you STOP closing the window, PLEASE?" The fat lady says, in a schoolmarmish way. The Spaniards look at each other for support. 

"No," says one of them, in his singsongy Spanish way. "Eees cold." They look like they might have been a team at school, as well.

Fat lady huffs audibly. She reaches to open it again. She gets halfway and the other Spaniard reaches over and shuts it, fast. WHUMP. He can move faster than her. They are enjoying the game now. They can sense they have the support of the Rasta as well. 

"ER ...EXCUSE me", she says, stressing the Errr. "I would LIKE it open!"

"Weeell too bad," sings the Spaniard, we would LIKE it closed!" 

The Rasta chimes in. "Yeah, it's freezin' back 'ere, man."

One more time, the last time, the fat lady pulls the window open. A gust of wind blows into the old lady's face. The window is slammed shut by the hand of the young Spaniard, this time with no hesitation whatsoever. He looks ready to stand up and face her down.

"You're VERY rude," says the ruddy lady.

"There are three of us back here who would like the weeendow closed. ONE, TOOO, THRRREE," says the first Spaniard, counting his allies with his finger extended and finally pointing to his chest. Have some reespect for us."

The fat lady has given up. It's her stop anyway. She gathers herself and her things up and bustles past her neighbour to get off the bus, breathing heavily. The Spaniards look triumphant.

Their victory smiles are broken by a sudden outburst from the old lady. She tuts as she moves one seat away from the crowd. "This country's seen better days," she says. "Bloody got to get home." She stands, falteringly, to get off at the next stop, before repeating herself. 

I look over to the lady sitting opposite me, on the other side of the back of the bus. She's stifling a giggle behind her copy of the Evening Standard.

"Is it a full moon?" I ask her.

"Must be," comes her incredulous reply.

Then comes the familiar announcement, in that strange faceless woman's voice, which is so incongruous in Brixton. 

"This bus terminates here. Please remember to take all your belongs with you. This bus terminates here. All change please."

We all decamp to the very cold bus stop to await the next one.

The Bitter Sweat City

Image credit tompagenet via flickr

Wow.

It's been 17 months since I started writing this blog. Give or take. And I have to confess, I feel like a bit of a fraud these days. I mean, take the title. London held so much for me back then, and it always will, but now it holds memories, not promises. I waited a long time to find what I was looking for in London, then I found it. I found him, more precisely. And now, every day I'm here feels like I need to start looking for somewhere else.

I've only been home for five minutes and it's 6.45pm. I finish work at 5.30pm, if I leave on time, which is rare at the moment, and it's taken me over an hour. That kind of daily commute wears you down after a while. Just getting onto the bus today, I took a couple of elbow jabs in my ribs, but nothing terrifying; it's just the average midweek homeward rush excitement that everyone who takes the 59 from Waterloo to Streatham seems to get.

On the bus there are shrieking children, crying babies in enormous prams, a host of not-too-personal stereos, and people sitting at the back of the bottom deck who frankly could do with investing in much more rigorous hygiene protocols. The bus driver is pissed off with us, with the traffic, with the weather - heavy tropicalian downpours one minute, sunshine reflecting off chrome bumpers the next. The air is dirty and heavy and all too still on the bus, as we all fight for elbow room for the Evening Standard, which every now and again gets rustled, irritatedly, by my travelling neighbour.

Increasingly I feel this beautiful, dynamic, crazy city is wearing me out. Maybe I am just prone to feeling more tired more often these days. Maybe I'm showing my age. Maybe it's just the first full week back at work in about a month and I'm feeling sorry for myself.

But the drive to move, to see, to go, is pulling at me, hard. The urge to take a leap, break free, do something worthwhile, and all those other clichés, is stronger than ever.

Luckily the man in my life is feeling the same way. It's a good thing I don't have to convince him about any kind of adventure. He was born ready. "Let's go and work in Africa", he says. "Let's run a bed and breakfast. Let's do a road trip across America. Let's run a jam farm."

Any or all of these options are attractive (especially the jam. Yum.) But the need to do something productive, from which I can gain tangible results, is important to me too. So we get to thinking about VSO. Something, somewhere at the back of my memory, reminds me that a maths teacher of mine once did a stint in Eritrea for VSO. Facebook comes into its own. BAM. I've fired off a friend request and an email faster than you can say 'opportunist'.

Mr B, let's call him, after 17 years or so, remembers me well. I'm tickled. But I'm much more interested in what he has to say about his volunteer experiences. He says it was the two best years of his life. He also says it was bloody hard work, and could be very isolating at times. He is keen to stress that the organisation might be very different now to when he was a part of it, but that they were looking for people who fit their mould, who shared the values and ambitions of the project. That they were matching people to roles, not the other way around, and that there were a number of hoops that he had to jump through in order to even get onto their books, as it were. The process from initial enquiry to beginning his posting was one year.

So I figure the end of next summer can be our own timetable for action. Maybe in another 17 months, this blog will have ceased to be what it originally was. Maybe I'll have to change its name, or start a new one. Whatever happens, you'll read about it here first.