Thoughts From a Londoner Twice Removed

Last week, a good friend of mine (a Madrileño living in London for some years now) emailed and referred in to me, in a very kindly way, as an ex-Londoner. I surprised myself by how forcefully I wanted to dispute this, given that I can't see myself living in the UK again for any significant amount of time, and that I'm about to undertake another mammoth move even further away to the US, a whole timezone away from London's beat.  But something about being cut off from London frightened me, like I was going to be cast into social oblivion. London's ex, who didn't get to keep any of the mutual friends.

"I'll always be a Londoner, though, won't I?" came my needy cry.

In his best discursive Spanish style (I mean that in the nicest possible way) he asked me several questions back. "Let's see, what's a Londoner?" he wrote. "A fairly open and heterogenous state of mind? Caring about the best hamburger in town? Complaining about the Tube? Not being able to afford your first house? Having your mind as open as Cicciolina's legs?"

I had to google who Cicciolina was. I don't think my mind is that open.

Then I thought about all of the other questions. Here's what I came up with, after much pondering.

I think I'll always be a Londoner, because I'll always feel I have a claim of sorts on the city. I won't feel lost in the centre of it. I'll understand why people moan about the tube, or grumble that they can't afford houses. There will always be places with memories that I will gravitate towards; places I would either cross the street to seek out or to avoid. And there will always be a funny sort of pang of recognition in some key places where big things happened. I can't cross Waterloo bridge without feeling something profound. You can't spend your twenties somewhere and not feel that, I think.

On average I have returned to London once every three months this past year, and things have changed even in that short time - new skyscrapers, new restaurants, new overground stops, new cycle lanes. But the sense of homecoming, although it isn't home any longer, is still strong. It that because so much of my family is there, or because I can step easily from the Gatwick train, pull out my oyster card and know my whereabouts, or because I don't have to struggle with the language?

Or is it deeper and more self-absorbed than that? Is it because I see myself in others there, I know who my tribe are just by looking at their newspaper and I have memories and emotions deeply rooted in the familiarity of those train platforms, those journeys, in the increasingly green places I pass on the way to my mother's train stop in Chelsfield?

Marx wrote: Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive. 

I'd be interested to know what you think. Do places have a hold over us because we see ourselves in them? Because they contain our memories? Because of the people within them? And once we leave a place, do we still retain any claim on it, even if we do not return?

I don't have any hard answers. I was just enjoying the question. Cup of tea, anyone?

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 ;)...

Aaron & Jane

Some of you may remember reading about my colleagues Aaron and Jane (yes, their identities have been protected) who were getting up to all kinds of tricks last year, like going to parties dressed as Smurfs, or ringing each other up from adjacent offices to do the 'eh-eh-ehhh' noise from Little Britain and then hang up. You know the ones.

Well, we're coming to the end of an era. I feel an update is needed now, as I nurse a very sore head from going out to Aaron's leaving party at one of South London's 'premier tiki bars' last night. 

The leaving party marked the dawn of an altogether unfamiliar new age: next week, the office is losing Aaron to Glasgow as he embarks on a career with the Civil Service. Lord help us. In fact, Lord help Glasgow. 

Aaron's had a lot of ribbing about what a life-shortener it will be to live there, but I have rallied resolutely for its charms, telling him about everything from the amazing eateries like Stravaigin, The Left Bank and The Ubiquitous Chip and the lovely little watering holes there like Tchai-Ovna (they sell tea, not whisky, before you ask) and The Lismore (they sell some amazing whisky) to the general friendliness, wit and spunkiness of the people there. 

Tchai-Ovna, Otago Lane

The Left Bank, Gibson Street

The Ubiquitous Chip, Ashton Lane

I feel nothing but love for Glasgow, it's a vastly under-rated place and at its best that way. I'm sure Aaron will feel at home in no time at all. He's full of tales of misadventure and craziness to regale the good people of Glasgow with. And if there's anything I've learned from living with someone who left their heart in that fair city, it's that Weegies love a good yarn. Also, any city whose statue of the Duke of Wellington is continually (and repeatedly) enlivened by the addition of a traffic-cone hat has got to have a wicked sense of humour. 

I am going to miss their double-act though, Aaron and Jane. Just last week they came back from the Benicassim festival, and Aaron was predictably a fetching shade of cooked lobster, having fallen asleep open-mouthed in the sun on more than one occasion. He was also sporting a new head of hair, having sun-in'd his mop to within an inch of his life. Because said new hair has been stripped of its bounce and shine, and is looking rather straw-like, Jane has taken to affectionately calling it "Ken hair".

In a city that doesn't take itself too seriously, I think he's going to be just fine. 

Grandma

My grandma, a woman of considerable character, an impish provocateur, a lady of substance who knew her mind until her final days, slipped quietly away on November 24th. It took us all by surprise that she decided to go so quietly. And decide she surely had, for she had suffered several falls, two small strokes and mild heart failure already this year, yet she hadn't given up in hospital. She had waited until the time was right for her to go, simply and quickly, at the nursing home she had lived in since August.

My mum asked me to say a few words at her funeral, which was scheduled for December 3rd,but the snow in Chelsfield, near Orpington, that town where all trains break down (and all who enter abandon hope) was about 18 inches deep and the town was practically unreachable, so the event was postponed to the 15th.

'A Remembrance of Grandma' was to be my section, after the vicar's introduction and history of her life - which made for some truly incredible listening.

Born on a small island off the coast of Norway in 1913, and raised to go to 'housewife school', she won a prize at said school for her goat-milking skills (the fastest goat-milker in the west... of Norway). In the early 1930s she came to England to work as an au pair for a rich Norwegian shipping magnate's family. By 1939 she had met my grandfather, a bit of a wide boy from Bermondsey, at the Norwegian Sjømannskirken (Seaman's Church) who apparently was a favourite with all the Norwegian girls due to an unparallelled knowledge of London's bus routes, and by 1939 they had a wartime wedding. She was unable to go back to occupied Norway during wartime and had no idea of how her family were for the duration of the war.

Making a life in Orpington in the 1940s as a foreigner must have been hard. Raising 5 daughters on a very tight budget, she excelled in making do and mending, cooking from scratch and tending to fruit and vegetables in her cottage garden. She spent her life mobilised for peace, too, after having been separated from her family by war, and was a vociferous supporter of Amnesty International and the WILPF.


Here are some of my other enduring memories of the fantastic woman I got to know over 28 years.

- Always in the garden when possible. I remember rows of hydrangeas, an archway of roses, and honeysuckle. Clothes were always drying on the line. Everyone remembers summers in her beautiful garden. It was her pride and joy.

-       A very snappy dresser! Liked to look good, have her hair done and always wore perfume. A true glamourpuss, and true to her star sign - a veritable Leo.

-       A firm but fair hand with children. She loved her grandchildren and her face lit up whenever there were children around. She was a stickler for good behaviour, though, telling us to eat up our ‘wegetables’ and had no problem with disciplining us if we were naughty.  She will always particularly be remembered for chasing a certain couple of my young cousins, Peter and Jonny, around the house with a wet flannel, a story which has become family legend.

-       This propensity for discipline was something that made her lack of success with her cat, Sandy, all the more astonishing – that cat weed everywhere! Oh, the smell! The other pet I can remember, Flossie the dog, was thoroughly pampered and had full run of the house as well. So we might say she was more of a softie when it came to animals...

-       A true trailblazer of the modern age, grandma championed fair trade products, shopping locally, recycling and the make-do-and-mend culture which is seeing a massive resurgence now. If you ever needed a bit of 15-year old tinfoil, or a tin of baking powder from 1987, her kitchen drawers were sure to hold your treasure.

-       Spirited and opinionated, even in her later years. She fought with nurses, argued about taking pills, told off carers and certainly didn’t mince her words when it came to a subject she felt passionate about. She championed the WILPF and Amnesty and we are a more politicised and outspoken family because of her - in the best way possible.

-       She LOVED her soaps. The Eastenders, Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street theme tunes were forever burned into my brain after living with grandma for our first year in England. The TV was always on VERY LOUD, so in order to speak to grandma you would have to shout. The best outings/ entertainment for grandma were VERY LOUD things. An amusement for some of her great-grandchildren in her later days, was that at her house, one was not only allowed but encouraged to shout. Endless fun.

- And finally, she loved men! She always liked to meet new gentlemen and always, always enjoyed attention from a well-spoken young man. Rumours abounded of a gentleman friend in her last weeks at the nursing home and we were all glad to hear it.

Grandma, you will be remembered and missed by us all, for being a strong and inspirational woman who was ahead of her time in so many ways. We are all so proud and lucky to have known you for as long as we have.

Borghild Margit Cooke (née Nielsen) 17.8.1913 - 24.11.2010