london life, 2006 - part one

We spent the next few days after Goodwood getting back into the London way of life, looking for jobs and a place to live, which is tricky when you don’t have a job. Mercifully someone in Cate’s block of flats had an unsecured wireless connection, so we could surf from the couch which was a bit of luxury. We had a great time with Cate for those few days, and we met her boyfriend Steve, an English sports journalist, when he came over for dinner. Steve turned out to be a really nice guy (wouldn’t expect anything else) and we all got on really well. We had a lovely dinner prepared by Cate, drank lots of red wine and talked well into the night until the insects forced us inside.

Once we had worn out our welcome at Cate’s flat we had an invitation to stay with Shaun, a friend who had moved to London just before I did in 2001, and whom we flatted with for about 8 months in Chiswick. He had a really nice one bedroom garden flat in Vauxhall with a futon we could crash on in the front room. Shaun is well settled in London, and had Homechoice broadband set up, which made it easier to search for work and accommodation. Again, Shaun was so good to us – he was such a kind and generous host, he even cleaned out his under-stairs area so we had somewhere to stash our bags. As it turned out, he was actually away on business for much of the time, so it was almost as though we had our own flat already. That was probably not such a good thing because it made it seem less urgent for us to get accommodation of our own. We really did enjoy our time in Vauxhall – it’s a nice suburb to live in, but strangely devoid of any real High Street, so it feels a bit like it has no focal point, perhaps no soul even. We did become very fond of walking up to the corner to the Brazilian deli to get a sandwich (the lamb and mint was particularly good) and an iced tea, and eating it in the adjacent Vauxhall Park. I wish I'd taken a photo of it now.

Shaun's living room. What can I say? It's the only photo I have.

Anywhere and any time in London, your experience can suddenly be infected by the crazies. In this case we were quietly eating unch in the park when a woman began hysterically screaming the name of someone we assumed was her child right across the (large) park. It turned out to be an adult, possibly a partner/husband who began shouting right back across the park at her. Loses something in the translation, but it really was a very odd episode. One occasion we managed to get out of the flat was for a bit of a wander. We were getting stir crazy, so decided to walk to South Bank. It was a really lovely walk through Kennington, past Waterloo Station and up to the Thames. We checked out the market stalls there and ate our Tesco sandwiches sitting on a bench, watching the interesting characters go by. We ambled back to Vauxhall along the riverside, passing the London aqaurium and making a mental note that we should visit it soon. That made for a decent 7.5 km round trip, and a really nice afternoon.