I 'heart' LDN

As a Londoner and a commuter, I appear to be heading towards the terrifyingly indelible territory of becoming one of those uncouth City-folk who is easily frustrated with tourists. More specifically, with tourists who amble along at a snail’s pace, who change their mind about which direction they're heading in last minute, that don't know Tube etiquette. It never used to bother me, but I'm increasingly finding myself angrily rolling my eyes at those who stop dead in front of me whilst I'm trying to get somewhere. (“Rolling my eyes” because I’m far too polite to take any overtly physical or verbal action that may be considered rude).

We know who we are. We manoeuvre the streets of London, or whichever city we're living in, with an aggressive grace somewhat akin to the lovechild of a gazelle and a heavyweight boxer (for the record, I’m not suggesting that all urbanites are living alternative lifestyles involving bestiality). We walk with purpose. We walk with phone in hand, talking, typing or reading. We know which platform we need, exactly how to navigate the maze of tunnels, escalators and buskers to get there, where to stand on the platform to minimise the distance to the exit at our destination. We effortlessly weave betwixt all those that stand in our path. We do not initiate conversation withother commuters. We maintain a dignified sense of personal space whilst sweatily pressed up against each other on the Tube, casually reading our books, Kindles and free newspapers as though we were in our own private studies with a glass of brandy within easy reach. We raise a wry ‘brow above narrowed eyes at tourists who comment loudly about how busy and/or hot the Tube is.

There is, however, something that feels profoundly wrong with this attitude. It’s rooted in the notion that we’re busy people, and that we need to get to where we’re going as quickly as possible. We must not waste a single precious moment. All those who ramble aimlessly are wasteful, procrastinating, lost waifs.


But as J R R Tolkien wrote in The Fellowship of the Ring, "Not all those who wander are lost". 

When I wrote my “I resolve to…” list for 2012, one of the entries was to walk more. When I started this blog, it was partly to capture the many wanderings of the City that I’d planned to do. So far, seven months in, the blog’s been light on the wanderings, and heavy on the ponderings (and notebook/book fetishes). This is partly because I am, as a colleague has aptly christened me, a “Sun Baby” who retreats to the safety of my duvet as soon as it begins raining, and conversely needs to be physically tied to my desk if you expect any work from me once the sun graces us with its presence. It’s also partly because over the last few months I’ve managed to let the mundanity of life distract me from l’art de vivre, ie from the small things that make us happy.

Thankfully, the past week has reminded me why I included ‘walk more’ on my list and I think it may have saved me from becoming a caricature of a soulless City-dweller.

Before I get to the Portobello mushroom of this post (I’m a vegetarian; “meat” is lost on me) and why I think we need to take a leaf out of the tourists’ book, let me share a few of my procrastinated meanderings from over the last seven days:

Sunday 22 July:  Headed out to The Regent’s Park (on the bus I might add, a last minute decision after realising I wasn’t in a rush and it was a beautiful day, so why get the Tube?). Read by the boating lake. Looked out aimlessly onto the boating lake. Resolved to go rowing on said boating lake before the summer ends. Walked over to Camden market the long-way round, with a stop off to look at the giraffes in London Zoo, which can be seen from the street. Arrived at Camden. Spent too much money on new piercing, second-hand books and jewellery. Curse you Camden.

Tuesday 24 July: After quick drink with a colleague after work, decided to go for a wander as it was too nice an evening to head home. So: From Minories down Canon Street, down to St Paul’s (nice little walk around St Paul’s Cathedral. Discovered London 2012 mascot Wenlock dressed as a red phone box. Also learnt that apparently couples deem the grounds of St Paul’s perfect ‘making out’ territory), down  Fleet Street, the Strand, detour into Somerset House, back onto the Strand, to Trafalgar Square, an aborted walk around The Mall before back to Trafalgar Square. Jumped on the bus back home after seeing that there’s a route that goes right outside my flat, and once again realising that I wasn’t in a rush to get to my destination.

Wednesday 25 July: A group of us from work go for a wander around Tower Hill at lunch, to see all the various London 2012 activities that are going on. Cameras come out, and we joke that we look like tourists when we actually just work five minutes away. We become increasingly excited at the sight of Olympic volunteers.

Thursday 26 July: Quick drink with another colleague after work before heading home to view a house. Tube back into town at about 8.30 in the evening. Destination? The temporary Fire Garden at the National Theatre. Absolutely breath-taking, and end up spending about an hour and half there before finally heading back home via Westminster Bridge.


Friday 27 July: Took an hour out with a colleague to watch the Olympic Flame on the Gloriana by Tower Bridge. Aside not having a clue what was going on, and both of us being too short to really see anything, was brilliant for the buzz and the barge. 

For those that are good at maths, you have hopefully worked out that:

(impatient commuter - urbanchip on shoulder)^sunshine x time to kill = urban tourist

Or something like that. Maths isn’t one of my strong points. Much like geography.

But I digress. To cut what’s becoming an ambling piece of writing short (ironic, no?), what I’m getting at is that I think we sometimes need to become tourists in our own cities, to take in the city around us with the eyes of curiosity and wonder normally reserved for the unfamiliar.  

In my previous post from by the sea, I ruminated on how we can recapture that sense of peace we often feel when we’re away from home. I didn’t have an answer. But during each of those mini stories from the past week, I found myself feeling exactly the same way I did whilst away. And this made me pause, to try and work out how it was that I’d managed to feel that freedom whilst in the middle of London, where I work, commute, go out, every day.

And I realised it was this: I’d suspended my rational Londoner for the moment, and taken on the traits of a tourist with all the time in the world to explore and all the curiosity of discovering the new. My pace had slowed down; my eyes were turned up and around me to take in the architecture and surrounding world. Walking down Canon Street and then Fleet Street I saw things I’d not seen before, like the fact that many of the buildings sat on top of the highstreet shops are all wonderfully old, each strip unlike its neighbour. At the Fire Garden I could hear fellow Londoners saying, “I don’t get it”. But there was something beautiful about the little cauldrons and plumes of flame right by the River, and the use of music to complete the experience. In the same way that looking on at water and the sky can turn us into philosophers and poets, fire has the same effect. There was nothing to get. It was there to just be enjoyed.

Wherever we live, we tend to stick to the familiar. To the same pubs, the same restaurants, the same shops. How many times have you said, “I’ve just not gotten round to seeing it yet” about an event, museum or some other ‘tourist’ activity? I’ve lived in London nearly twenty-seven years (minus a stint in Manchester for university), and I’ve only just started enjoying all it has to offer. With the sun out, and the greatest sporting event taking place on our doorstep, we have no excuse to not head out of the comfort of our homes and explore a little. Okay so “no excuse” may be a little harsh, but if we have time to kill or we’re deciding what to do in the evening or on the weekend, it’s not hard to checkout www.spoonfed.co.uk or www.londonist.com or whatever the equivalent for your city is, to see what’s going on, or just heading out to an area we don’t know that well and pretending we’re tourists in our own city. I love London, and will always be a Londoner wherever I’m living. But it’s only when I act the urban tourist that I remember why.


A few photos from the last week

Beefeater Mandeville by Tower of London

The Fire Garden at National Theatre

"His pen could lay bare the bones of a book or the soul of a statesmen in a few vivid lines" Not a bad way to be remembered for a journalist. T. P. O'Connor on Fleet Street.

An example of the architecture on Fleet Street (and around London) if you can take your eyes off the high-street chains

Another shot from Fleet Street

A couple of statues fly the flag for London 2012 on Fleet Street

Breathing feels effortless

A (lightly edited) musing from by the sea.

There are some moments, some scenes, smells, sounds, feelings that you wish you could capture in their entirety to relive, to experience again once the moment and sensation has passed. They don't come around too often, and when they do they tend to be unique, the type that never could be recreated. Not because the circumstances won't allow it, but because of the way in which you experience it, who you are at that precise point in time when it arrives.

As I write this, the old fashioned way with paper and pen, I'm in one of those moments. Nothing can improve it; I wouldn't want to try and improve it. Nothing could detract from it.

I'm going to attempt to capture it through words, having already attempted through picture. Forgive me if it becomes pretentious, wandering, nonsensical. Let's just see where my pen takes me.

I'm sat. Beneath me and around me is a sprawl of black volcanic rock. I've found a spot with no juts, with the perfect footrest at the perfect distance and at the perfect height in front of me.

The sun, which has been beating down on us all day, is starting to weaken on Round Seventeen, and is starting its descent back to the horizon. My back is to our villa, which lays just behind me. The door to our backyard is open, and I know it to be framing my youngest brother as he relaxes listening to music by the pool. My other brother is somewhere behind me, also on the rock, reading. His girlfriend is dozing, on a sofa inside the villa. 

In front of me, the sea is breaking on the lava flow, its persistence building up as the tide starts to come in and the slight breeze that's roughing my hair picks up.

There are four sailboats in front of the horizon ahead, white sails chasing each other, a little like a school of fish we followed earlier in the day whilst snorkelling. A few seagulls are showing off overhead, surfing the wind currents that I can't see.

It smells of the sea; slightly fishy, slightly rancid, slightly salty, all lying just beneath your breathe, catching you unawares every now and then as the wind changes direction.

Camera beside me. Music in one ear. The sound of the waves breaking, the wind, and kids playing further down the shore in the other. 

All sense of stress, worry, self-doubt, self-consciousness has slipped off. My mind feels completely disconnected from my body. But at the same time, it feels like — for the first time in a long time — mind and body are in sync. 

Breathing feels effortless. You pause every now and then to take in the world around you, remind yourself to savour it.

I turn around, and see I'm now alone. And it feels right that there's no-one else here, no-one sharing this moment, this experience. And not for the first time over the last few years, I relish the freedom of thought, of feeling, of experience, you can have when alone.

I'd been sat here for what must have been half an hour, writing something else entirely, absorbed, before I became aware of the peace I was feeling.

Living in the city, immersed in day-to-day life, with work, money worries, always around people, you can so quickly forget who you are when all that is stripped away, who you are at your core. Even in those moments when you manage to snatch some 'me' time, you're still aware of the buzz going on just outside your door, the other end of your phone, and you carry that buzz around with you. 

And so sat here, now, just you, you realise. So what if you're not quite as fit as you should be? So what if your weight isn't quite what you feel it could be? If you aren't quite up-to-speed with the latest on the economic crisis, haven't seen as many plays or been to as many exhibitions as you could, that your hair seems to have taken on the appearance of a wet poodle?

This sense of peace with yourself, with the world around you; if you could capture it, take it with you wherever you go, to be able to close your eyes and relive that sense of freedom of self that you felt, how much calmer would your feelings towards life be? And how much more switched on would you be to that around you, to that which matters and that which does not?

So we are who we are, we love who we love, we enjoy what we enjoy. How hard is it to recognise this in ourselves, to respect it in others? We each have our strengths, our weaknesses, fears, joys. Unless we can find the headspace to explore them in ourselves, unless we can be open to sharing them, to being trustful of those we spend our days with, will we ever be able to recapture this peace when back in the tempest of our 'normal' lives?

Why is it so hard to say, 'This is me. And this is you. I'm not perfect, but then perfection exists only as an abstract ideal anyway. Let's strip away our agendas, our walled selves, our distrust, and just be.'

Not the best photo, but a photo nonetheless