One Week of Summer: Life in London @ 11 weeks

After a very late start to the summer and some odd April snowing, London is turning out the most surprisingly beautiful weather this week. Its been fine almost every single day since last Sunday, the temperature is just perfect. The sun isn’t scorching like the summers we have in the Southern hemisphere, and neither is it humid and sweaty like the summers in Asia or Southern Europe. The breeze is cool, soothing, fresh, calming... you can wear a T-shirt all day and you never get cold or sunburnt.

In a city where every inch of space is money, the precious pieces of lawns on gardens and squares and the outside tables of the pubs are filled with people, fighting for their little corner of summer. Absolutely everybody is out and about all hours of the day and into the night - picnicking, playing frisbee, lounging, flirting, forgetting themselves - just relishing in this weather that simply fell out of the sky. Mwwwaaaah!

So what am I doing now? I am traveling at a speed of 80km/hour directly underneath a packed and rowdy Oxford Street, onboard the last tube home on Friday night – aren’t I good? My reflection is rippling in the window opposite me against the passing lights of the station the carriage had just left. There’s a big burly black guy right opposite me, awkwardly avoiding touching knees with me, holding a yellow brochure in his hands which reads: “Travel is a means to an End. HOME”.

I don’t force myself to count the stations anymore after a boozy night – just in case I fall asleep or whatever – I just know. Nor do I need to look for the exit sign when I get off the platform, or hesitate at the top of the steep and churning escalators when I rush up, just in case it eats me. I push in and out of the doors just like any other impatient Londoner, and skit past the Oyster machine as if to demonstrate how grumpy I am about the fact that its holding me up.

Eleven weeks in London – could I really be this comfortable?

My favourite part of the day is the morning, when I take the lift down with the charmingly flirtatious neighbour who always holds the lift for me. I walk past the Greek delis and the smell of coffee and onto Hyde Park. Saying hello to my brood of early squirrels and admire rows of tulips on the flower bed, past the horse riders, joggers and energetic dogs. I charge down Regent Street facing the sun. Greeting the English (or not) gentlemen in their light day suits walking my way with a beaming smile, taking in one whiff of warm cologne after another as we rub shoulders, assessing which one I’d rather like than another. Waltz out of Leicester Square and into Monmouth Street for a flat-white, and greet the receptionist as I push through the revolving doors with a gainly “Good morning Mrs Smith” before I swivel into my chair and a hot finger on the Start Button.

The fixed-term contract job is pretty straight-forward and I can’t say I am extensively stimulated, but I like the environment, the economic staff café, the girls that I go out with on a Friday, and beginning to get over the ‘We Are The Bastion of Institutionalised British Formality’ work-culture shock. After beating myself into accepting the eventuality of living a bureaucratic 9-5 existence through committees, user groups, advisory panels, editorial boards etc, I do find myself picking up ridiculous expressions like “Sounds reasonable,” (as in, "I’ll accept that for now, but don’t expect it to last for too long"); and “In the interest of fairness,” (as in “Hang on a minute Lady/Mister – but you’ve crossed the line") and “Oh dear me!” (as in “What the fuck have you done this time?”). At the end of the day, it is adding to a mental and financial stability for me, as this is the highest paying job I’ve ever had in my life, and it affords me a relatively comfortable city lifestyle. I’ll probably just scrape enough money for the traveling in the year ahead, but I certainly don’t expect to be taking much money home with me.

While I have been occupying myself with side trips out of London on most weekends at the moment, I am finding myself rather occupied on the week evenings drinking, doing various activities like live music etc, meeting a copious amount of interesting characters, and exploring hidden corners of London just for the thrill. On the evenings I have free I take another long stroll home through Hyde Park again along the Serpentine, just enjoying the colours of the sunset and the happiness of people when they are in a festive mood.

My landlady is going through a bit of a rough patch of late-life crisis which gives her quite dramatic moodswings. 50% of the time when I get home she will offer me half a bottle of red and I’d sit on the carpet having an apple tobacco shisha with her while she reminiscent the golden times that went by. The other 50% of the time she would be quite moody and we’d have ridiculous argument about my hair clogging up the drains or that I left the kitchen light for an extra ten seconds than necessary. Other than the fact that I am trying not to get my head done in by this whole passive-aggressive thing, I think I’ve got things pretty much sorted out at home, when I’m actually there…

Its all pretty physically demanding, but mentally it just feeds me on and on and on… I feel like I’m on fire. If I had come to London when I was 18 years old, I probably could have even been able to fit more in these days that are just not long enough, but I probably won’t have the political nous or street wisdom to know how to get the most out of it. I am really glad that I am at a stage of my life where I’ve reached a point of maturity and awareness that my accumulated experiences are helping me select and collect and rearticulate the further things I want to bring into my life. And If I’d come here at age 38 I’d probably be over the whole thing. So yeah, I am happy here for now. Comfortably cruising at 80km/hr.

Earlier this evening I was at a familiar waterhole in the East end, taking over a footpath next to an ancient graveyard between Liverpool St and Old St stations with my mates. A little weary too though, with the added complication of having to avoid running into ex-lovers, especially when I’ve only been in town for less than 3 months. Good form Wawa, good form. I had on a rather serious looking pinstripe work suit on the top, and a pair of jandals (thongs/flip flops) on the bottom that I strategically prepared earlier, but the ensemble made me look suspiciously like I’m attending a Big Brother premiere in Queensland Australia. I was bouncing around raving on about the wonderful weather, as one does, when Young Cambridge Graduate in the circle advised me oh-so-cooly: “You know, summer might be just this week. I hope you won’t be too disappointed.”

For a minute I felt a bit annoyed and a little deflated. But with this warming beer in my hand I thought to myself – hang on, I really don’t care. I don’t care if summer only lasts a week. Its right now and I am right here in the middle of it. When it gets cold I’ll find myself a bag of coal and some hot chocolate. I’ll find a stool to stand on and lift down the box of winter coats from the top of the wardrobe, turn the damn volume up on the stereo and find a big fluffy guerilla to snuggle up to. I will sing to keep warm and cry to keep warm. I’ll still be getting up early and hitting bed late, and I’ll still be having a fucking good time. No one, not even the weather, can it away from me.