Life in London @27 Weeks

Winter has bypassed autumn completely and has loomed London in a coat of grey. Darn. Why I continue to join 7.5million others in putting up with this weather still baffles me. Typically I am back on the IKEA foldout couch at Wendy & Deno’s in jolly old Dalston while I look for another dig to plonk myself in for the next little while. In any other circumstances living out of plastic bags would be a pretty dire situation for anybody - but I have found myself back into a busy routine of ever-ending after-work drinks, luncheons and picnics and dinners and festivals that it really doesn’t make a different what I live out of anymore. Alas!

I now make a 1hour 15 minute walking journey to work in Holborn through the melting pot of Clerkenwell Road and Grey Inns Road. People watching is at its best here – Londoners of all walks of life cross their paths here on foot, on bikes, and - but in an uncrowded and fairly succinct and ungrumpy way that I still get to observe their expressions, idiosyncrasies and their choice of attire quite closely. It adds a wonderful supplement to my current read – the hilarious Watching the English by Kate Fox.

On the days that rain (which is quite a few) I take the 243 bus (takes equally long as walking, would you believe). Sitting on the top of the double decker, every journey I have taken on this bus passes the bus stop on the corner of Kingsland Road and Old St in the middle of buzzing Shoreditch. I have been on a self-imposed 8 week alcohol break, and hence have a tendency to over-react when I see any signs of alcohol. I am irritated by the site of two cans of Fosters beer that’s been sitting on the top of the bus stop canopy for as long as I remember taking the 243. a) I wonder how it got there at the first place and b) I am really surprised that no one had gotten to it in a bout of desperation already. Does this say something about how unresourceful drunks are in London or does this say something about the quality of Fosters?

Flat hunting was a bit shit to start with. Because of the transient nature of London, and how busy young professionals are, its very hard to find a kiwi-style flat where there is a communal feel to the household. Many lodgements are maisonettes where the tenants have individual leases with the landlord, have their own locked rooms and share a common bathroom and a kitchen, like a guest house arrangement almost. It basically makes the place very sterile and not-looked after because no body’s really taking care of each other or a communal shared space. None of the other tenants would be interested in who the next person who moved in would be and naturally they’re not there to meet you. And then there’s other places where the location is so bloody fantastic that it doesn’t matter how run down or dirty the house it. I literally tripped over dirty underwear in the hall way of one of the flats, that had 2 years worth of grease in the kitchen and more years worth of mould in the bathroom. To add to the insult, the incumbent tenant appeared to be doing some sort of psycho-sexual scientific experiment in the room – it had torn rubber gloves all over the floor and stuck on the walls, and there are strange looking white powder and paint scattered all over the place. The agent of the landlord, unshaven, and dressed in ripped track suit pants with his beer belly pouring out resembling someone who would be desperate enough to take out those Fosters beers on top of the bus canopy, was completely unembarrassed by the condition of the house. “Call me darling, if you’re interested.” he said.

Thankfully after a painstaking search I have found a lovely little place just off Old St near the park and canal, and only 10 minutes walk to the thick of the exciting nightlife in Shoreditch and Brick Lane. I will be sharing my tiny little haven with a balcony with a Mexican robot inventor (Emma says I only want to live with him because it sounds nice on my blog) and two Polish sisters, one an accountant and the other a student. It was pretty much sold when the ad specifically asked for someone who will be there to be part of the house and no someone who’s there only to sleep. Why is this something so hard?? and when I saw the plate of biscuits they prepared for the open-house visitors I knew that I have found, finally, somewhere I would feel at home and part of. First of September, in the diary.

Other updates:

• My grandpa is still in hospital (but a different one – he had to move due to health insurance) and apparently not getting better or worse… it’s a little frustrating esp now that my poor aunties and uncles have to commute a lot further, by Dad will be back for mid autumn festival to spend time with him which is good.
  
• My M-8 has gone travelling full time before he heads home in November ;-( Its sad to not have him at my greasy little fingertips, but I will be meeting up with him in Wales this weekend for some nice hikes and then in Croatia for some sun in late September, so its not all bad is it!!
  
• Stupidly I scheduled Dublin in during my self-imposed alcohol break, because I was quite inspired by the fact that my boss had managed to do a work trip there on Ryan air for £18 all up. (my ended up being £68 – talk about discrimination) but I am sure I will survive the temptation of whiskies and guinness’s… I hope…
  
• And there’s finally been an update on the food blog for those that can’t handle this one!!

The Sheltering Sky

"How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."
– Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

A-Gong’s room at the hospice overlooks a lush green hill with a little road through it that is frequented by bicycles. Post-typhoon weather is still a little windy but the sun is pretty much always out and in the last 10 years, the pollution in Taipei has dramatically reduced so the sky can be very clear on a breezy summer’s day like this.

I’ve been coming the hospice every single day since I got in last Monday night. A-Gong is basically asleep most of the time, and is pretty much too weak to get up by himself and can now hardly talk or eat solid food. He is often wearing an oxygen mask and he has several tubes stuck inside him, every move seems so hard and painful, and we feed him mashed fruit and vegetables through a syringe. He laps in and out of consciousness, but every time he sees me or my sister or one of my cousins he always squeeze us a huge warm smile. On a good day he’d say something cheeky or pull a funny face, and make fun of things. Despite being bed ridden, I think he is generally in a really good spirit, and has an incredible amount of will to keep going and hold on. Although sometimes I wish he didn’t have to put up with all the physical discomforts he is in, who is to tell me that he isn’t in a fit mental condition to embrace what he still see as being beautiful in this world? We all know that nothing is limitless.

Though we don’t get to interact much in terms of chatting very much any more, I feel that its given me so much relief and comfort just being here with him and keeping him company. My family will never be the same again, but I feel that I am really happy with the way things went in the last two weeks. Its been a mostly happy and quality time I’ve spent here. I’ve had so much time to remember and reflect and think about the values and legacies he’s passed onto me and my family. If there is anything called closure, this may be it.

I leave in two days time, flying all the way back to London to the rat race again, carrying on the way it was, as if time just froze for 13 days. Back to the alternative universe that I live in when I am surrounded by ‘Western’ people and where I continue to carve out a path on my own that just seems so strange and lonely to my family who are always just so ready to offer me love and protection. I don’t know what it is about me that just can’t keep still.

Anyway I’ve had some time to update the blog: if you’re interested there are photos etc from the camping weekend in Wiltshire, a mystery weekend along the Kennet-Avon canal & Bath, my One-Woman invasion of Normandy, hiking in Somerset and Cheddar Gorge, and a wild Roller Disco night out in Vauxhall.

See you back in London.