Day 70: Camber Sands to Hamstreet to Ashford to London

Highlights:

• Taxi driver from Hamstreet to Ashford
• Showering
• Going Dark at The Young Vic

There was a somewhat optimistic check-out time of 10am. I managed to get the ball rolling and started clearing up the jelly and mulled wine remnants of the previous day. I took our keys to the pirate ship to check out; this formal process consisting of our keys just being dumped in a pile with no ticking off of the number on them. Pontins just about does ATP (though it really was a brilliant weekend. The best sort of festival you can imagine).

Chris Bunting from Farnham offered to drive us to Rye, if we didn't want a lift all the way to Guildford. We picked the former, though due to some poor navigation on his part we ended up in Hamstreet in Kent. He gave us both hugs goodbye, and thanked us for our hospitality and welcoming natures. We didn't share contact details. 

Turns out Hamstreet has an extremely irregular train service, and the next train was coming from Rye with (we expected) a packed carriage of ATP goers. We decided to try the bus, though just as we were walking to the bus stop, one pulled out. The next bus wasn't for 50minutes. We truly were in the middle of nowhere. We called a cab, and a nice Ashford local came to pick us up. He was a United fan, as his only football influence as a youngster was from his Uncle who lives up North. Definitely not a glory hunter; did you know that Manchester United were relegated in the 70s? This guy supported them throughout. He dropped us at Ashford International with some useful stats; it's only 50 miles to London from Ashford and this new Hi-Speed train takes 36minutes. I jumped off the train at Stratford International and left Paddy to go to King's Cross. He needed to get home quick to sleep, ahead of going to 'the Ryder Cup of Pool' at York Hall in Bethnal Green. Yeah, it exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosconi_Cup.*

I arrived home and SHOWERED. I spent the afternoon unsubscribing myself from all the remaining mailing lists I'd been added to when I entered those competitions in late November. I received a message from my friend Lucy showing me the headline about the Facebook party in Billericay. It was on her old road, Pauline Gardens and just seems a little extreme for suburban Billericay. The article is a tad confusing (here) as it seems to suggest the mum was there for the entire party and continued to let guests in even though the house was being completely trashed. Still, I've promised Abbie and Tony that when they're away for New Year I DEFINITELY WON'T hold a Facebook party at our flat. Definitely. 

Tony came home from a long day at the Studio (11-3pm, then a few beers in the pub) and invited me to the theatre in place of his original date, Ian. Ian works at a company which (I think) consults theatres on sets, lighting and sound for their shows, and they fund him to buy a number of tickets for plays each month as research. He had to pull out last minute to fulfil Dad duties and as Abbie was out, I was third choice to go see 'Going Dark' at The Young Vic (promo photo below). 

We caught a bus which (despite usually including this mundane information in my blog posts) I understand is not at all comment-worthy, except that I think it was the first time I've ever seen Tony on a bus. It was pretty harrowing. Whilst I tried to point out the viewing benefits of the top deck and seeing London in a different way etc., Tony just seemed frustrated that we had to stop to pick strangers up. You don't have to do that in a car apparently. We had the front seats of the top deck though. Just like a couple of year 7s before they get moved on by the older kids. We got there just in time before Tony had a complete meltdown. Abbie's since told me that you have to tell him it's a big red taxi. It's the only way to make it acceptable to him. 

There's a really nice bar above the Young Vic theatre, which I'm not sure if you all know. It's called The Cut and is just quite comfortable, friendly and does a good selection of wines, cocktails and food. Good for dates, I think. There were three plays showing that night though I hadn't realised the theatre had so many different rooms. I've only ever been to the main one before, the last time being to see Bingo with Patrick Stewart (who I unrealistically assumed I'd share a taxi with back to Bermondsey; he owns a pied-à-terre there, you know). Going Dark is being shown in The Maria Theatre. As it was all a little last minute, I had very little info about the play beyond Ian's comments that a lot of it was actually in the dark and it was about the Cosmos. You're advised to leave your coats and bags outside as you had to keep them on your laps during the 75minute performance (presumably for health and safety as people could trip over them in the dark)**. There are lights under each seat to guide you on the way in, but as soon as the performance starts, the room goes completely black. You can't even see your hand in front of you, and there's not even faint light for your eyes to adjust to. 

So, Going Dark is written by Hattie Taylor with assistance from Sound&Fury to really make some powerful connections between the plot and the audio and visual experience. It's a one man play, though there's a recorded voice for another character at various points during the production. As the light came and went, you could see audience members peering to see if there was an actor behind this voice. It really is an incredible show. The limited light, this great actor (and at one point, dancer) and all the sounds around you, alongside some substantial 'accidental learning' about the Cosmos make it well worth going. One of the strongest, most unique shows I've seen in a long time. I left with more knowledge of the astronomy than I EVER picked up at school and wanting to star gaze, though sadly in London we could only see one star. But I now know how to find Polaris (follow the two stars on the front of the plough and it's the constant, though fainter than you'd imagine, star not far ahead), know that Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, with only two planets being brighter (Venus and Jupiter) and know that Orion's armpit is called Beetlejuice. I also know how and why stars turn into Supernovas and that the nearest next galaxy (which can mainly be seen as a blur in your peripherals just below the second 'V' of Cassiopeia) is called Andromeda. I'm not going to use all my knowledge now. Saving that for dinner parties over the coming months. Watch out for my astronomy chat, guys.

We caught the tube back (I could literally feel the relief pour out of Tony) with a greater awareness of sound over vision. I came up with a project for tomorrow's blog. 

End of day 70.

*Apparently Paddy didn't end up going, though he informs me the US were winning after yesterday.
** My one criticism of the performance was the naff collection point they allocated for the racks of coats. The four racks were lined up down a thin corridor with only one entry/exit point and it only allowed single file, so you had to wait for everyone behind you to pile out before you could escape. I mean, it wasn't a deal breaker on my enjoyment of the evening, but still, fix up, Young Vic. 

Day 41-43: London

SUNDAY/MONDAY

Six weeks travelling, eating barely any fruit and vegetables and living off mainly beer and bread but remaining completely healthy, and then three days back in London and I pick up a vicious cold. It happened on Saturday, in the space of about 30 minutes. You know when you can literally feel the sickness developing inside, but not being able to stop it? A slight discomfort in the throat, a sneeze and then BAM, death's door. Consequently, after a night out drinking on Saturday, and with this cold to beat all colds (well...not quite...but I was a little poorly) I did absolutely nothing on Sunday. I slummed around, completely guilt-free. I got out of bed around 3pm, and then eventually out of my pyjamas in the evening (rediscovering my onesie and then actual clothes). Tony cooked us a roast dinner and heated up a nutroast for me. Common misconceptions about vegetarian food aside, it was actually really tasty. I mean, it's just nuts and beans joined together with some cheese. You can't really get that wrong.

I still had the cold on Monday, so I moped around in the morning, feeling sorry for myself. I made it out of the house a few times to do errands, played on my Kindle a bit and then waited for Abbie to get home, at which point I stood around annoyingly as she made a tartlette and couscous for dinner. Ian and Ellen came over with baby Charge. It was all going swimmingly, until he threw a bit of a tantrum and started crying. You could confuse him for a few seconds and he’d stop crying, but then a second after he’d remember what he was supposed to be doing and belt out a few more tears. Film and TV baby cries are slightly misleading, or perhaps Charge has just developed his own unique style of crying. He sort of makes sounds like a pterodactyl when he’s in the throes of his unhappiness. Eeeeerch, eeeerch, eaaarrrrck. Those sort of sounds. Ian and Ellen seem to take it in their strides though, and adultly try to reason with him to stop, though there's varying success with that method. The old bounce and bop generally seems the best way to silence him.  

TUESDAY

Things got interesting on Tuesday. Well, in comparison to the past four days, things got interesting. After promising Abbie by text every day that I was going to go to the gym, and then afterwards head to the Design Museum, I finally found my membership card and made it there (no gym, though. I was in recovery from that brutal cold, wasn’t I?). 

The Design Museum is in the Shad Thames wharf and was set up by Terence Conran back in Thatcher's day. He tricked her into agreeing to part-fund the museum be saying that it would be a place to display British design and ingenuity. Terence, father of Jasper and founder of Habitat (R.I.P.), had his own exhibition at the museum a few months back called 'The Way We Live Now', which showed all the cool things he'd done in his life. He takes credit for revolutionising the sex lives of Brits by bringing the duvet to the country. Pre-duvet, we just hard horrible rigid blankets. Not conducive to sexy-times. Aside from the duvet, Jasper and Habitat, he's also designed the chairs and crockery for a lot of top London restaurants. 

As I’ve got a membership, I really need to go to every exhibition to get my money’s worth and the last time I went was a few months before to see the ‘Designed To Win’ exhibition (which I think is closing soon, given that all Olympic feeling is nearly depleted). On the walls as you head up into the exhibition, there are lifesize outlines of lots of famous athletes and a few stats about them. You feel slightly torn looking at these, as whilst you may be only one month younger than Lionel Messi and nowhere near as famous, talented or successful, you’re also the same height. Shorty. The exhibition itself displays all the top developments in sports technology, so from this lethal-looking time-trial bike (here) to the Speedo LZR (here) BSA: START I wrote a joke article about the LZR a few years ago with some friends (here) and then felt pretty pleased with myself when it came up as a question on University Challenge, and I could answer it correctly END

That was a cool exhibition, and at the time they also had the Designs of the Year 2012 displaying on the top floor which was INCREDIBLY cool. Covering all areas (entertainment, transport, public services, architecture, landmine-detonation devices, fashion etc.) it was so impressive and really inspiring to see design being used for things beyond the asthetic of various products. My favourite items were the landmine-clearing device (below), the earthquake table (here) and the Tesco virtual shop in South Korea (here). I bought the book showing all the designs if anyone ever wants to see it. 

At the moment they’re showing ‘Digital Crystal’, which is sponsored by Swarovski (I will consider it a major life achievement when I’m certain of the pronunciation of that word). I don’t know much about crystal or how it’s formed, but if it’s anything like the cool video you see on entry, then it is ridiculously cool. There were two long screens either side of a darkened corridor showing these enhanced, sped up videos of crystal growing as they played these eerie noises littered with crunching sounds as the crystal broke free of the ground:

The exhibition itself was cool (see photos below) and used a variety of devices to display the ideas, including a cool 3D projection thing you could only see as you got close up, like some sort of Star Trek technology. There was this cool ring of crystal, which looked relatively nondescript from the outside, but as you cut down through it, you created polar bear shapes (I've included the white one, as the crystal is too difficult to make out here). 

As a side note, Swarovski was founded by Daniel Swarovski in a place called Wattens in Austria, after he patented a specific sort of crystal cutting machine. Just so you know.

I didn't bother going in Designed to Win again, but headed to the top floor which is now displaying an exhibition called 'Thrift' by the Designers in Residence 2012. I think the museum funds a few young designers each year to get them started. Supposedly after being given access to as many materials and equipment as possible at university, when designers leave they've not got the funds to buy any of those things, so generally have to start out using either cheap goods or changing their styles completely. This is only a small display, but there was a cool PCB (Printed Circuit Board...) that looked like a tube map:

And another woman had created a new product from wool cast-offs from carpet factories, by mixing it with starch. She showed how firm the material could come by putting it in a toastie maker. Yummy, gluey wool toasties. 

After the exhibition I had a walk along the Thames, and took some photos of the nice sky and the seagulls flying over the river in front of Canary Wharf. Beauty in what would otherwise be a pretty grotty area. 

I then headed to the Woolpack pub on Bermondsey Street. This was my first day living as a London Tourist, so I had to resume my European lifestyle of a glass of wine at 3pm each day. Their house wine was a Hungarian wine called 'Moonriver Pinot Noir' (from Aszar-Neszemly, Hungary). Compared to cheap European prices for decent wine, I felt a bit hard done by for the £5.60 medium glass cost for something that was pretty minting. Probably not going to take Gabo up on his offer to show me round the Hungarian vineyards. 

I had to bring my costs up to a £10 card-payment minimum, so I ordered the next one up, which was 'Tilia Malbec' (Mendoza, Argentina) for £6.10. Steep cost, but it tasted much better. I probably can't afford this on a daily basis though. I mean, I've got no job. Can't really justify expensive wine purchases over paying my bills. Before going for the second glass, I went to the loo (don't worry, this is going somewhere) only to find the toilet didn't flush. I told the barmaid, but said it was fine and didn't look bad; it just had a bit of tissue down it but it wasn't gruesome. She went silent for a moment and I presumed the conversation was over when she suddenly said "Have you seen Dogma?". I have seen Dogma. I imagine it must be considered an appalling film by the reviewing community, but I loved it. Alan Rickman with no penis? Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as fallen angels? Alanis Morrisette as God? Amazing. I immediately knew the barmaid was thinking about the Shit Monster scene, where Jay and Silent-Bob have to fight a monster made of shit that comes out of the toilet. That barmaid is a legend. What a brilliant response to a non-flushing toilet warning! 

Went back to the flat to meet Abbie, Tony, Lewis and Abbie's Mum for a group cinema outing to finally see Skyfall. There's a big Odeon near us in Surrey Quays, and on Tuesdays with Abbie's premium card (which I think is a free loyalty card), tickets are only £5.50. Cheap for London. Abbie's mum bought us ice-cream to thanks us for taking her out to the cinema (it was originally supposed to be a date between her and Tony, until Abbie, Lewis and I crashed) and we settled in.

So, given that our housemate has been working on the score to Skyfall, and has had the film lying around on his computer since June, we've all done pretty well to not know any of the plot. Cue a phone conversation with my brother on Friday telling me he'd seen the film, and before I could even draw a breath, revealing what happens in the last scene. Thanks, bro. I presume it's payback for me convincing him to let me tell him what happens in HP and the Half Blood Prince (about a certain wizard dying...). In my defence, I at least gave him the option of not knowing. He just blurted it out before I could stop him. Also, when Abbie was booking our tickets online, in the customer reviews below the ticket options the  douchebag reviewer had revealed the same plot development in the first line of the review. So we went into it knowing at least part of what was about to happen.

Pre-film, there was the benefit of the Kevin Bacon advert being shown in the trailers, and then the Les Mis trailer. That's a family-induced guilty pleasure. Can't wait for it. All those celebs singing? Brilliant. They also showed the Life of Pi trailer which looks insane; it's been given a sort of mystical realism style and whilst I'm not sure I'll actually see it or if it's any good, I reckon it'll be visually impressive if nothing else. Another version of Great Expectations is coming out soon as well, though given that there's only just been another BBC version, not sure there was any point to a film? I wonder why they never check what's coming out before releasing two versions of the same thing in a short period. They did the same with Robin Hood.

Back to Bond; I haven't seen Quantam of Solace and I fell asleep during Casino Royale, so I wasn't really expecting to be blown away. But boy, was I blown away! I'm not going to reveal anything (because that's cruel, isn't it Tom?) but the opening credits are amazing (they go on for about 5 minutes and it's the most visually amazing thing I've seen in a while) and the film is generally great. Action, but without having unnecessary explosions/car chases serving no purpose to the plot, a good story, beautiful/bleak/hectic locations, a great villain (whose first scene might be my favourite Bond/Villain scene in the film series' entire history. It's hilarious. Watch it if only for that) and just brilliant cinematography. Not like your traditional Bond lady-killer stories, but for the first time I felt that it didn't matter. Daniel Craig's Bond is so much more engaging than any of the former ones. If you haven't seen it, I seriously recommend it. Also, there are loads of London scenes, and a nice Ben Whishaw in the National Gallery moment. BLOWN AWAY. We stayed to watch our housemate's name in the credits and then went home to have a beer.

Day 38-40: London

Highlights:

• Getting drunk with my sister on Lidl Prosecco, and learning about Morwenna's medieval re-enactment parents
• Kindle Fire, imdb scene actors recognition
• Baby Charge and Saturday morning Coffee Club
• Reunion drinks with a few friends in the White Hart pub near Waterloo
• Learning that The Hour is coming back to BBC next week (starring Ben Wishaw, Romola Garai and Dominic West)

Lowlights:

• Fern’s bag getting stolen in the White Hart pub near Waterloo
• Kindle Fire not able to charge whilst in use

So, I considered keeping a daily blog on returning to London. It would force me to make the most of the city, right? Make sure I don’t just sit around watching back series of Diagnosis Murder? But after three days and only having a gym trip, window cleaning session (A THREE HOUR WINDOW CLEANING SESSION) and a nice nut roast Sunday Dinner to talk about, it occurred to me that my home life may not be interesting enough to write about on a daily basis. So instead, I’m going to make it every few days, or once a week, in the hope that I’ve done something more entertaining than cook beans on toast in that period. I’ve had a great few days though being back in London. After all that moaning I saw on Facebook about weather, London’s been brilliant. What are you guys talking about? Check out those blue skies and that mild weather*! Those autumn leaves and all that.  

THURSDAY

So on my first day back I ended up waking really early (well, 8am). I had a restless sleep on my memory foam. I think the problem is that it really is almost too comfy. Falling asleep means you miss out on some good comfort awareness, and that dilemma plays on your mind during the night. Anyway, despite being 8am I decided to just get up and make the most of my first day back in London. I went to suss out the kitchen food situation, but it was pretty poorly stocked. We had one egg. No milk or bread, and just one egg. 

Still, it made me get dressed and head to the shops rather than slum about. It took me a while to get ready. I was so excited about the idea of being able to wear different clothes, I tried on about three outfits before settling on a different pair of jeans and a SoundCloud t-shirt. With sleeves! That felt particularly luxurious after 5 weeks of only cutoffs. BACK STORY ALERT (BSA) START: I had sent a unsolicited job application to SoundCloud in Berlin, sending along a book of gig tickets I’d put together over the years to prove my love of music. I figured I had nothing to lose. I received an email from HR saying they had nothing relevant but to keep an eye on the post as they’d sent me a gift. More badges than you can shake a stick at, a few stickers (I might plaster one of the cars on the estate) and a SoundCloud T-Shirt. Not bad, eh? END

I did relatively little for the rest of the day, though I did start exploring my Kindle Fire. It’s a really decent product. Compared to an expensive iPad, it does the same thing, including letting you access music and books from the Amazon Cloud, or storing them on the device, but for a much lower value. You obviously lose a few things in the price drop, but given that you can browse the web, read books, download email and facebook apps, I think it’s worth spending less if you’re not massively in demand of the extra iPad features. The coolest function is when watching videos (you have to have a lovefilm subscription, though you can stream an adequate library with their £4.99/month deal), if you tap the screen, without stopping the video an imdb box pops up giving you links to the actors in the exact scene you’re watching. So if you ever have that ‘Shit! I know that actor. Where are they from? Lemme think, lemme think. Mmmmmmmmmmhhhh’ moment, you can just click on the link and a pop up will appear from imdb showing you their history, briefly pausing the video. You can close the pop-up and resume the video in a second. So after a nice day paying my bills, tidying my room, going to the gym and playing with my Kindle Fire, I came over all helpful and felt the urge to cook dinner (which was a version of this here) and then wash up. Great first day back.

FRIDAY

This was the day I decided not to write a daily blog, because I realised Thursday and Friday’s activities really couldn’t warrant two whole posts. I've given it my best, excessively-detailed shot though. Guys, you've in for an excruciating treat.

So despite the length of this post, Friday was actually a relatively un-eventful day, despite my best plans to make it at least productive (if not interesting) by going through my photos and loading the appropriate ones onto this blog and checking the old posts for spelling and grammatical errors. However I was spurned by some appallingly slow Sky internet and the new Everything Everywhere network on my phone (please watch this amazing Kevin Bacon advert here) which didn’t give me Anything, Anywhere. I had evening plans with my sister though; her boyfriend Jeff was moving back to New Zealand after his Visa had run out, and so I figured she probably needed a little comfort. I was killing time with Tony and Lewis when I received a call from my Dad saying he was in town for work drinks, and wondered if I wanted to meet beforehand. That beat watching Tony try to reload his online Call of Duty game for the billionth time. 

So I went to meet Dad for an early dinner/drink near Covent Garden; we were supposed to meet at Covent Garden station itself but he heard the overhead announcement declare that there were no escalators at Covent Garden, so thought it better to get off at Leicester Square instead because he has a bad leg. That’s all well and good, but a little misleading of the voice lady perhaps as instead of escalators, Covent Garden is equipped with lifts which  would presumably have actually been a better option for his leg...We faffed a bit (Dad - “I’m by the Singing in the Rain theatre”. Me - “Well, I’m by the big Steakhouse at our actual meeting point and haven’t yet managed to learn all theatres and their current productions by heart, so have no idea where Singing in the Rain is showing at the moment”**), but eventually caught up. He wanted dinner so we went to - wait for it - Pizza Hut. Hut. Not Express, but Hut. What a blast from the past. He ordered a Pizza and I ordered the quite tasty House Malbec (bit of a nice grape choice for PH, isn’t it?). His pizza came with a salad bowl, so I spent a good five minutes trying to cram as much in it as possible, being careful not to waste space with lettuce or unstackable tortilla crisps. Dad gave me some family updates and then told me about my their slightly bemusing/concerning 5th November experience. 

BSA START: Billericay holds a HUGE firework night every year on the Saturday closest to 5th November, so we’ve all paid our increasing ticket fare to go most years since I was born (Mum’s got a great anecdote/horror story about how she brought me as a baby to Lake Meadows and I started screaming my head off at the sound of the first firework. She was left stranded without my Dad, trying to push a huge old-fashioned pram with a screaming baby inside through huge crowds and muddy walkways, almost crying herself. In my defence, probably not a good move on my parents’ part to bring a baby whose default noise was to scream until its throat was sore, and then scream a little more after that, to a firework night). There’s an early bonfire and burning of Guy Fawkes (which I’ve only bothered to go to one year when my brother, a Beaver at the time, helped carry the dummy Guy Fawkes to burn horrifically onto the fire. Definitely an appropriate activity for 6 year olds), some funfair rides and a stage hosted by Martin and Sue (and the Morning Crew) from Essex FM, featuring such pop-acts as the Cheeky Girls and a lot of X Factor failures. This is all followed by a 20-30 minute mega-display where the fireworks go off in time to songs like Live and Let Die, a few standard classical pieces, and then last year a playlist with titles that included the word fire (Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’, the Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ and Kings of Leon’s ‘Sex on Fire’) END. 

On the actual Guy Fawkes Night (for international readers see here), for about the past 10 years, we’ve alternated with the Wild family (they used to live four houses from us, and their eldest son is my brother’s friend) hosting a mini-firework display in our gardens. This year it was at the Wilds’ new house in Billericay. 

It’s always been a relatively unsafe affair; one year a firework fell over just after it was lit and it bounced around the garden, off the wall and fences and only just missing us as we scrambled out of the way. Like all potentially-mutilating firework accidents (we’ve all seen the public service warning posters), we didn’t even take it that seriously at the time, and sort of shrieked happily as it whooshed a few centimetres past our little kiddy legs. Mum might have been the only one screaming with sensible parental fear. So for 2012 both families bought a box and headed out into the garden to start their display at a reasonable 9pm. After a few fireworks, they suddenly hear yelling from over the fence down the end of the garden; the Wilds’ new neighbour is shouting “What do you think you’re doing? Stop those f****ing fireworks”. My Dad said this guy yelled and swore a few more times before they started defending themselves, explaining (possibly using a few choice swearwords of their own) that it was 5th November, and they just had a mini display that wouldn’t last much longer. The guy continued yelling, so the Wilds asked if they could perhaps come over and talk about it sensibly. The guy then said: You want to f****ing come over here? Do you? Come the f*** on then. Come f****ing talk to me”. After a bit more confrontational argument, the Wild/Pearson party decided to just carry on regardless (there weren’t many more fireworks to light and it was still only about 9.45pm) when suddenly the neighbour next door turned his sprinkler system on and directed it towards the Wilds’ garden. Comically, it fell so short that it didn’t even reach the firework area, let alone the people, and I’m sure everyone’s victorious laughter antagonised this guy even further. He then slumped off back to his house defeated (or to plot a revenge strategy). For the finale they had a nice Roman Candle from one of the sets. A nice, gentle ending at around 10pm. They lit it and stood back in anticipation of some nice, soft firework fizzle. Only, turns out it wasn’t a Roman Candle after all. No, it was in fact the loudest firework of the night and let off tremendous BOOMs every five seconds for the next three minutes. Whoopsy. Way to stick it to the F-word Neighbour. Keep an eye out for a future post about the Wilds being letter bombed or the victims of egging. 

After leaving Dad and having a little wander around the back of Covent Garden to see the Christmas Lights, I went to my sister’s. I stopped off at the Finsbury Park Lidl for a £3 bouquet of Autumn Sunset flowers and a £5.99 bottle of Prosecco. Not my first time in that store. I know exactly where to locate those bargains. Janine, a bit tearful in her heartbreak, appreciated the expense and we spent the evening showing each other photos and chatting with her housemates (my old housemates too, actually. Before moving to Bermondsey, I lived with Fleur, Jo and Janine, before letting my room out to Morwenna). 

Having only shown housemate Morwenna around the flat before I moved out and having only seen her once since, I hadn’t actually get to know her that well. Turns out she’s really cool and interesting. She explained about bad Obama’s Guantanamo continuation plans and later when I mentioned Ljubljana and asked if anyone had been to Slovenia (I can guarantee that about 99.2% of people I ever ask this to will say no), it turned out she had been there a few times! Her family had taken her and her sisters on holiday there when they were younger, and she’d been back with friends since. Morwenna’s parents are Celtic Irish, hence her being named Morwenna (she has a lot of problems with other people’s pronunciations, despite the name being completely phonetic. More-when-ah. She gets a lot of Morweeeeenas, and in her current temp job they’ve actually spelt her name Morweena on her temp badge to accommodate their version. Being called Nicola 50% of the time, I can sympathise). Her siblings are called Aisling (Ash-lin) and Angharrad (Ang-harod), so they have it a little worse I think, and one of them even has the middle name Attracta. Sure, it looks nice written down, but it is actually pronounced ‘a tractor’...Unsurprisingly she didn’t tell the priest about this name when she got married. Morwenna’s parents (Mary and Gerry (which in an Irish accent, this sounds like Jairrrh)) used to take the kids to North Poland for their holidays, accompanying donated goods from their Church to needy families in communist Poland. They drove all the way, stopping off every night to camp out and consequently seeing a lot of mainland Western Europe. They stayed with a nice Polish family the first year, and every year after that they went back to join them. The Slovenian holiday was a result of flooding in Poland and the 1980/90s equivalent of googling to find another suitable location to drive to. Morwenna describes her family as being ‘quite weird’, and I think they sound really cool (her parents play in a Medieval band and go to re-enactments in full court attire; her Dad is a tailor and so they even made the Medieval outfits themselves). 

Morwenna went to bed, and then Fleur hung with us for a bit. She surprised me by telling me she’d been reading my blog every day***, and telling me interesting stories about the time she was forced to go on an French Exchange (whilst still in Junior School!!!) and then for a year during university when she lived in Pigalle. The quality red light district area of Paris. The most interesting/creepy story she told was about a time she was waiting for a cab after a night out, and a car with four men rolled past, calling “Taxi!”. They called her 'poupee' (which I think means ‘doll’), a few other endearments and then on her sensible lack of response started calling her ‘salop’ (bastard?) and 'bitch' (erm...bitch). That French charm.

SATURDAY

I stayed the night at my sister’s, and we 100% confirmed between us that the other didn’t snore, just in case other bed partners had been too polite to tell us. We were woken up early by the check-in calls Janine receives from her colleagues in Liberia. Her company is working on a mining project out there (Liberia sounded like it could be a made up country before I heard about it from her) and as it’s at the planning stage with local tribes, it’s a little risky. A few quick facts for you about Liberia:

• Situated in West Africa next to snazzy Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast (and Guinea!)
• Capital city is called Monrovia
• Population of 4m, of which only 15% are employed. And we think we have it tough...
• It has lots of delicious iron ore for the West to mine

Janine had put her name down to receive the daily check-in calls from two of the engineers/planners out there. Presumably, if they don’t check-in they’ve been kidnapped by the local tribes (a genuine risk) and my sister has to start some sort of international rescue mission. Fortunately, both guys called so as of Saturday, they’re still alive. It’s been interesting learning from her about the whole mining process beyond the general negative impression we all have of greedy Western mining in poor nations. For a country with little money, economy or infrastructure, mining can actually have some benefits for the local people. If I’ve understood it correctly, in establishing the mine they will create jobs for locals and will also build a town around it, providing schools and general infrastructure for the people. And my sister’s role as a town planner/environmental impact assessor is to make sure this is designed and set up to meet international environmental regulations. So it’s not all bad. As long as the money the country receives from selling their iron ore goes to the people and not corrupt government officials....

Anyway, I rushed back to Bermondsey after a quick crumpet to get to Coffee Club. On the bus from Blackstock Road to Highbury station, I encountered my first London Transport Crazy (LTC)* since being back. European transport seems to be full of drunks, whereas London transport is full of CRAZY people. As four pensioners got on at Highbury Grove, this quite hefty and unwashed version of Emma Thompson’s Professor Trelawny got off the back seat, shouting “ ‘urry up! I’ve only got a minute” a bit of muttering and then “I can’t breathe on here! ‘urry up, you’re wasting my time!”. Whilst aggressive and directed towards a sweet looking 80something old man and his equally aged lady companions, that can’t necessarily be considered crazy until combined with the following lines (bearing in mind I had my iPod on loud for a while, and only caught the following lines three minutes later after seeing other passengers repeatedly glance round at her AND bearing in mind she was by herself and not on the phone): “Oh stop rain. You’ve been raining all morning and I’m fed up!” and then later, after some other jibbering, the creepier line “You would say that!”. Talking to the rain is something, but talking to a voice in your head? Certifiable. 

Anyway, after the bus and train, I just about made it in time for Coffee Club, with a quick stop off to collect my gift for Charge Gridley Stickland. BSA: START Before I moved in with them in February, Abbie, and Tony had established a routine of a Saturday morning coffee session with their network of Bermondsey/South London friends (colloquially known as Coffee Club among us). You used to be able to guarantee it would happen every week, so you could just turn up and find people there without checking first. Or, after everyone in the group (apart from me) bought iPhones, you could use the stalkers-delight app ‘Find Friends’, to check the GPS coordinates of your friends and see if they were still at home or on Maltby Street. That app aside, it was quite a nice community event, and felt particularly un-Londony. For a brief bit of background on the location, every Saturday from about 9am-2pm, Maltby Street (a pedestrianised, warehousy street which runs just behind the bridge in Bermondsey, which runs on to London Bridge) hosts food and drinks stalls and a Saturday-only Monmouth coffee house, and the arches under the bridge open up to sell groceries, cheese (Neal’s Yard and others) and fresh baked pastries and bread (I think a lot of London’s cafe bakery products are made in this area, as when I used to go for 6am runs on weekdays I would be taunted by the smell of freshly baked croissants as I dragged myself past). In the main grocery which we usually go to, you can get a huge bag of fruit and veg which will last most of the week between three people, and it generally only comes to about £10 (you can spend that on one meal’s worth in T*sco. It really opened my eyes to the actual costs of these products if they’re grown locally, and the mark-ups supermarket chains put on things when in their Metro stores). So over the summer, Coffee Club fell a bit slack, and fell off entirely when the Monmouth coffee grinding house shut. This was an archway where Monmouth ground and stored their coffee to supply to London, and unlike Borough Market’s shop, it was only open on Saturday mornings. I think they still own that space, but it ceased it’s Saturday morning selling when a development across the small street started going up and blocked all the sunlight for the people who sat out on the chairs they provided in the street. It always had a huge queue and presumably made them a heap of money, so they reopened further along down the bridge away from Maltby Street (which has been reviewed a ridiculous amount in Time Out and London Guides recently so has got increasingly busy) alongside a few other weekend warehouses-turned-shops. As a side note within a side note, on my first visit to Maltby Street I bumped into my sister’s friend Anne****, and then when I first took my parents, we saw Andrew from Masterchef (little guy with curly hair, who used to be a banker*), and later that day saw Gok Wan walking his dog END.

So I’m hoping this Coffee Club revival was really set up as an excuse to allow me to meet the new baby I’ve been writing about/making famous on this blog, Charge Gridley-Stickland. Since coming home, I’ve been taken aside a few times to confirm that I understood that the baby wasn’t ACTUALLY called Charge G-S, and had been given the name Edison Stickland. Charge was just the nickname before birth, when the parents (Ian and Ellen) didn’t know the gender but needed to call it something. I like it though. I think it’s a strong name, so I’m going to stick with it. So after a quick introduction to Charge (we didn’t shake hands as he was swathed inside Ellen’s coat, but I touched his cheek in what I presume is some form of Eskimo greeting a few levels of intimacy before rubbing noses) everyone grabbed a coffee and some cake. Abbie presented Charge with his own toy versions:

We grabbed some groceries and then everyone came back to ours, and I got to properly hold my first baby. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s my first baby hold beyond adult guided, pretend holding of babies when I was under 10. I couldn’t help but develop a bop as I held it. Without any control, my body sort of dropped into some sort of self-guided hip-hop bounce. I just couldn’t stop. Charge seemed to like it though, and made some weird non-standard baby noises of delight. As well as Abbie’s gift, I’m pretty sure Ian and Ellen were impressed with my Monoprix outfit for the baby, combining a sort of Lederhosen and a T-Shirt with bikes on (Ian loves all that Tour De France/Professional cycling rubbish as well).

I spent the afternoon cleaning windows, in what I’m calling ‘professional training’ for an idea I have of setting up a window cleaning business on my estate. It’s got hundreds of properties, and if I charged a fiver for each flat, I could make a decent amount of money. All I need is a Squeegee and a bit of soap and soon I’m driving round the estate in one of those low cars with blue lighting, blaring out the best sexist-R’n’B I have in my collection. Then in the evening, having burned a severe amount of calories I’m sure with my wax-on/wax-off moves, I went to the pub to meet some friends for a sort of mini I-know-I-haven’t-been-away-that-long-but-let’s-have-reunion-drinks-anyway event. All was pretty upbeat; my school friend Fay came along who’d just passed her accountancy exams and was going to visit her parents (who now live in Hong Kong) for Christmas, Leo (from Paris, but who is interning for Total in Canary Wharf), Fern (work-friend Fern, who actually elevated to the ranks of genuine friendship through good effort on her part, and a friendship-cementing tent-sharing at a music festival the previous summer), Dom (who could only stay for one- wait, I can stay for another cheeky-half, before he had to shoot off to meet the foxy Dutch girl he was letting couch-surf...in his bed....), Sarah (school-friend who had just been to China with her MP employer Tim Yeo to talk about a green-future), Paddy (stayed for only a half before going to a dinner party in Hampstead. I don’t think I know you anymore, Paddy), and later Alex (Fern’s boyfriend, and blog reader, who identified with the struggle to find bottles of still water in mainland Europe). So after the upbeat start, it all got a bit shit when Fern’s bag got stolen. Having lived in London for about three or four years, I’ve seen virtually no crime. My Whitechapel housemate Joe told me about a relatively unsuccessful mugging in West London that he experienced, and then I saw a woman complain that her bag had been stolen in Leadenhall Market’s St*rbucks once. But this was the first I’d properly experienced it. It wasn’t even oversight on Fern’s part. Her bag was completely tucked away in all of our eyelines. But the robber must have been smart, and just nipped past her as he/she saw we were distracted. Sarah and I did separate scout outs of nearby bins/gardens/underneaths of cars as Fern cancelled all her cards and her phone. As I came back, I tried to cheer her up as she argued with Natwest by revealing the potato I’d just found in my bag. I emailed our old company to say her company blackberry had been stolen as Fern told me that she’d only had a replacement two weeks before after she dropped her last blackberry down a toilet in Morocco. Pretty sure these are signs that God doesn’t want you working there anymore, eh Fern? Despite this, we managed to have a good end to the evening as I tracked down Alex (despite Fern not knowing his phone number) and convinced him to leave his friends and help his girlfriend in need and distress. Saturday over. 

*I started writing this on Saturday, and so acknowledge that we’ve had a little rain and a few grey skies since

** Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue apparently. Where Spamalot and then Priscilla, Queen of the Desert used to show

***So the blogger site provides stats on the number of viewers I have on each entry, and where they view it from (so country and, somewhat non-importantly, operating system). I had on average about 25 viewers a day, with some posts having around 60 views and others only around 17. I presumed that the committed 25 would be my family (though Janine told me that her and mum skipped all the detailed arts stuff, Dad dipped in occasionally and Tom couldn’t give a stuff) and close friends. Seems the actual average viewers were from an unexpected mix of family, good friends, normal friends and acquaintances

****Great story about Anne and Janine’s friendship: They met at Reading University, became friends and then lived together in their third year. After graduating, Janine moved to London and Anne went to South Korea to teach for a while, before moving home for a bit. One day Janine was at home and started talking to Anne on Facebook Chat. Anne mentioned that she was in London for a week doing an internship with BBC, and was staying with a friend. The conversation that followed went a bit like this:

Janine: Ah cool, where are you staying?

Anne: In Finsbury Park

J: Haha, really? I live in Finsbury Park too! Where abouts?

A: On Hornsey Road

J: No way. I live on Hornsey Road! What number?

A: 203

J: I LIVE AT 203. WHAT BLOCK?

A: THE FIRST BLOCK BEHIND THE GATE

J: I LIVE IN THAT BLOCK!!!!!

A: WHAT? What flat do you live in?

J: Flat 7. Top floor, on the right

(10 seconds later)

Knock, knock. Janine opens door to find Anne with a massive grin on her face

A: Hi Janine

Day 37: Paris to London

Highlights:

• Familiarity with the Boulangerie Assistant
• Tony Shaw's Tour of London
• Ligretto and Game of Knowledge, a 80s children's trivial pursuit

After checking the election results, I packed quickly in the morning (did I mention that I'd washed and folded all my clothes already?) and then went for a quick farewell to the Boulangerie. Turns out she knew my order already; two croissants and a baguette tradition. I've only been here ten days. I 100% believe I haven't eaten 20 croissants and 10 baguettes. That's insane. I also stopped off for some journey supplies, and accidentally became involved in one customer's annoyance with the staff. I made some French sounding 'ooh la la, non, merh' sounds in response which seemed to satisfy her though I had NO idea what she was talking about. I went to take a quick photo of Mavis (below) and then went back to tidy up and listen to another Bernstein. 

Like all international high-flyers, I was getting the Megabus home. On Wednesdays, if you're under 26, the maximum you pay on any journey is £5. If you have £2.50 of T*sco club card points, this doubles in megabus vouchers and pays for the entire journey. So for this bus ride, I only had to pay a 50p reservation fee. Seriously. 50p to get home from Paris.  The bus station was at Porte Maillot just slightly north west of where I was, so I grabbed my final Metro and then an RER line (which I think is their overground?). It wasn't exactly clear where you had to go as you came out of the RER station, but I asked and found you had to just walk past the Palais des Congres, and then turn right and you can see a few buses parked up. Not an obvious, huge bus park, but a little common sense will get you there. I don't know why I thought the driver of the Mega Bus would be French, but I started trying to say "J'ai un billet pour Londres" when in his best southern accent said 'You're going to London? I'm going to London too!'. What a joker. He greeted all the passengers like they were long lost friends. Calvin, his name was. He made a few more jokes and then we were on our way.

So after trying to defend English humour to Isabelle, I was somewhat struggling as Calvin told an anecdote about how he saw a man give a homeless guy some food. The guy's face lit up then fell as he realised it was some Pedigree Chum for his dog. The driver thought it was classic. He laughed for ages. I felt like crying for that poor man. The only thing that cheered me up was discovering the free WiFi on the bus. 50p for a half-full bus with toilet (I didn't try it, but the whole bus looked pretty clean/modern), a Ferry crossing and free WiFi. Brilliant. We raced through France, which was looking pretty grey and miserable, and at some point along the way when I must have been napping, Calvin got off and someone else started driving us. An easy bit of passport control at Calais, and we made the earlier ferry crossing than planned. 

Not really much to say about ferries, is there? We were on the Spirit of Britain if that's of any interest? You can read more about it on this informed website (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345529/Spirit-Britain-Biggest-cross-Channel-vessel-steams-Dover-port.html). Look at those pictures and just imagine me and some strangers sitting there, charging our phones. I bought some Fireman Sam tissues (he's Welsh, you know) and then had to defend myself to the shop assistant for my choice. He obviously thought we were kindred spirits and broke into an anecdote about Andy Pandy or something. He was trying out Movember but definitely fell into the looks-like-a-sex-offender-who-lurks-in-park-playgrounds category.

We pulled into Dover. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for miserable England (Facebook updates from my UK friends over the past few weeks have been mainly about the weather) and looked out above the White Cliffs with a sense of foreboding only to see a nice blue/purple sky, with the sun just setting. Beautiful! It didn't take long for that feeling to fade though, and I felt myself descending into post-holiday blues. I sulked as it got dark quickly, and I put on some Bon Iver to match my mood. But as we neared London, I decided to fix up. I spotted Canary Wharf in the distance and I put some big songs on that would bring the city to life. Elbow, Arcade Fire, Alabama Shakes, Beck and then as we drove properly into the centre, I put on some solid music*. 

So despite having been all over Europe and seen so many cool cities, London is still an impressive city to come into. Landmarks aside, other features had all of a sudden developed a nostalgic warmth. Never before have New Cross Gate station and Elephant and Castle roundabout looked so beautiful. The big Tesco near Old Kent Road looked like some sort of architectural masterpiece. The kebaberies and insert-any-word-here-FCs (Fried Chicken) houses looked mouth-watering. The bus crossed the Thames (probably the best European river?) and I could see Big Ben (Is it Elizabeth Tower now?) all lit up and the London Eye in all its Ferris Wheel glory. What a sight. 

We pulled into Victoria Station around 6pm, and my brilliant housemate Tony was waiting in his car ("Barbara, call me Barbs") to pick me up. It was peak rush hour (yeah, so London is the worst city in Europe that I've seen for traffic. Paris second worst), so we ended up taking a slow tour through central London. It was just as good as, if not better than, arriving in the European cities. We drove past Buckingham Palace (Tour Guide Tony 'That's Parliament), down the Mall (Tony - "That's Marble Arch"), across Trafalgar Square, seeing the National Gallery and Nelson's Column (Tony - "That's Cleopatra's Needle"), along Embankment seeing Somerset House, the National Theatre and the new Blackfriars Solar-powered Bridge (which is actually really cool if you haven't seen it - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/picture/2012/jul/05/blackfriars-solar-bridge). Up past the Crossrail works near Farringdon (apparently even with this super-fast new train, it's still going to take 46minutes from Shenfield to Farringdon. That doesn't seem much more of a timesaver than the current train service....), seeing St Paul's (Tony - "That's the Shard) and the Shard lit up with red lights (Tony - "That's St Paul's").

So an interesting development; we passed a bus which advertised the PQA (Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts). Seems somewhat niche. Also, seems people have mastered the Boris Bike Wheelie since I've been gone? That was pretty impressive. I also listened to my first ever Zane Lowe (WHO'S ON BOARD?) as we drove up through Angel. He announced that they're playing Arcade Fire's 'Neon Bible' in full next week as part of their 'Masterpieces' segment. Apparently mixed in with interviews with the band. We headed to Becka's house just off Essex Road. Wednesday night is normally Dodgeball night (we're in a league, and our team seem to have suspiciously only started winning since I've been away...), but there was a week off (following the Fancy Dress special the previous week) so the team had congregated at Becka's for a games night. There was a beautiful reunion with my friend/editor/landlord Abbie, and then after dinner we got on with the serious business of Ligretto (http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ligretto). This is actually a really fun game, if a tad aggressive with certain players, so I'd recommend it. Then we played some 1980s kid's board game that we found in the corner of the room called GAME OF KNOWLEDGE. It was a bit like Trivial Pursuit but instead of cheeses you got planet rings. The questions might have been easy in the 80s, so even by answering the kids questions, it was a bit tricky ("Who is the current pope?" etc). I've found a link for it but bear in mind, this version is MUCH more modern than ours. Our cards were all crusty and dusty. The game asking about English 1980s general knowledge was perhaps slightly more difficult for the Canadian players amongst us (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3514/game-of-knowledge).

After a few serious hours of gaming, we up and left, passing this creepy mofo on the way out:

Back home, I found my new Kindle Fire waiting for me, but even better, a new hob. A hob that can heat up in under 20minutes. What a treat. Tony is probably the only 20something guy I know who could fit a new hob by himself; he's a total DIY marvel. 

I went to bed on my MEMORY FOAM (which I'm pretty sure remembered me. It seemed to sigh with relief at my return), wearing new pyjamas and fell asleep watching an episode of Red Dwarf on my Kindle Fire.

End of Day 37.

* A selection of my Driving-into-London playlist: Talking Heads (Naive Melody), Blur (End of a Century), Django Django (Default), Arcade Fire (Rebellion), Alabama Shakes (Hold On), Elbow (One Day Like This), Jamie T (Sticks and Stones), Supergrass (Moving), Beck (Think I'm in Love), De La Soul Presents Plug One and Plug Two (Must Be the Music) and Bloc Party (One More Chance)