El universo sobre mí

It's Saturday, and Saturday should be one of my "explore London" days, what with no office to go to and all that free time on my hands. But today, I'm happy exploring the four walls of my (today exceptionally clean) apartment, listening to jazz, drinking too much coffee and reading, gasp, a little bit of chic lit. I have a long list of places in London I want to go to - Clerkenwell, Alexandra Palace and the Shri Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir, Chiswick House, Kingston-upon-Thames, Denis Severs' House and the Columbia Road Flower Market. And then of course, Heathrow airport -> airplane -> the World. But today, I'm not going to. Because why go out into the big bad cold Outside, when you can be on the Inside of everything, at home?

With a little bit more of innocence ...

One weekend this summer, my old school friend Kika invited me up to her parent’s house in a little village in Hertfordshire. I had every reason not to go – for starters, there is no public transport and I have no car here in London, so getting there was going to be tricky. But I hadn’t seen her for years and I love getting out of the city once in a while, so I decided to throw all excuses out of the window and just go with the flow. I was once again a little tired of London, having worked and lived a little too much over the summer – at one point I even got locked up in the office after working till 10pm. I’d been staying up till 5am for no particular reason, then went to work on 3 hours of sleep, then did the same thing again and again. No wonder I was very, very ready to leave the city.
Kika and I had spent two sometimes-glorious, sometimes-horrid years in boarding school together, in a very picturesque but completely cut-of-from-the-world village in Suffolk and hadn’t seen each other since, as we both went off to university, work and travel, keen to forget the school and everything that it stood for. (Narrow-mindedness, being woken up by the eardrum-destroying sound of a giant bell at 7.10am every day, being gated far too often, more narrow-mindedness and rules, rules, too many rules.) But it was a good time too - back then, I still had time to read the Sunday Times with all its supplements, take long baths and paint my nails. I didn’t have to do my own laundry, cooking or cleaning. Sometimes, being a grown-up sucks.

My first shock upon arrival at The Village: no mobile phone signal. I honestly thought places like this did not exist anymore, and I certainly did not expect these places to exist so close to London. Second shock upon arrival at the Village: there were no shops, no post office and no pub. In the evening, we went down to the village hall, which operates as a private club, and where you can buy two glasses of wine, Coke and an Orangina and still receive change from a fiver. The people there knew Kika’s name, they remembered her 6th birthday party, invited her to take part in The Village drama group’s annual production, and they even knew what her parents usually like to drink.
Meanwhile in London, I have no idea who my neighbours are, even though I’ve lived in this building for a year and a half. I’m starting to think that it might be time for City Girl to calm down a little. I have moved houses 9 times in the last 7 years, if I am counting correctly. I don’t see my family enough. I don’t go to church; I don’t volunteer or take part in any other activities in my community -because, well, I don’t belong to the community. The suitcase is never too far away and who knows where I will be next winter. But I’m tired of it. I’m tired of always being invited out for drinks. As if alcohol was the only reason one meets up with people. Sometimes, being a grown-up sucks.

"So how about taking this empty cup and filling it up with a little bit more of innocence?" (You know like in that Jason Mraz song?) P.S. Kika is currently pursuing her mission to go around the world without flying (a personal protest against Stansted Airport, since her parents live close to it and the increasing air traffic is destroying the peaceful atmosphere in their village. She’s currently sitting on the London to Sydney bus; you can follow her adventures here. Also, she happens to be travelling with Jo Thompson, who is writing about their journey for the Telegraph here.)

Shunt Vaults

It was my birthday last weekend - sooo 18 again, hooorrray! I love turning eighteen; I've turned eighteen quite a few times now. It just gets better and better every year.

Without further blurb, because I don't feel like blurbing much today, here's the club me and my friends went to - Shunt Vaults in London Bridge. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly).

My friend M., after seeing the photos, commented, "It's so you: dark, dirty and wet." Yes, you guessed - M. totally is Mr. Double-Entendre, plus he also has a High Hygiene Standards complex, which you would expect from someone who still lives with their parents. Let's say, Shunt Vaults is pretty unpretentious - not quite as much as The Foundry, which is a little dirty even by my standards (which is quite something to say, given that I've been known to take 3rd class trains in India without complaining, followed by a bucket shower in a cockroach-infested hotel) ... but at least there are no 40-year-old men in pinstripe suits drooling over overpriced hookers like in that bar I wrote about before.

My friends totally loved Shunt Vaults - it's really big, which you would not expect from the tiny little entrance inside the Tube station and the rooms have different themes with all kinds of strange performance art going on, live music etc. Anyone fancy sitting down on a chair with nails? No? Why not?

The Sexophonist ... I like obscure men with obscure hats, especially if they can play an instrument.

Krusty the Clown!!! What a night ...

The Verdict: 9.9/10 - go go go go go there before they close. I heard that Southwark council is being a pain in the you-know and they might need to move another venue because of licensing issues.

Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.

I have written about David & Goliath before on this blog. This weekend I happened to be in Covent Garden, so ... since it was my birthday, I decided there was no good reason to keep procrastinating and finally bought myself the t-shirt I have been wanting for ages!

My other favourite t-shirts from David & Goliath include:

"I still live with my parents." (for boys)

"I have no car, no money and no job, but I am in a band." (for boys)

"Peas on Earth" with a picture of garden peas standing on planet Earth (for girls)

"Come to the dark side. We have cookies." (for girls)

Urban Gardens

My brother emailed me a few weeks back. Quite an extraordinary event, actually. We don't speak that often - not because we dislike each other but because we actually have very little in common. I realized this back in March when I was visiting my parents in the Czech Republic and decided to call him on his mobile at 8.30pm to discuss arragements for me to come up to Olomouc to see him and his wife for a couple of days. He was asleep. At eight freaking thirty pee em! He was angry and hung up without talking to me. I asked Mother if this was normal. She paused and said, "Oh yeaaaaah .... he goes to bed really early."

And now his email started with this ...

"I have just finished installing a UV lamp in my pond to kill microbes."

Alright, never mind the UV lamp. I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have a pond and I probably never will because I don't have a garden because I rent because I live in London because I am not settled down like you because ... because!!!

But there is hope. I found it. Maybe, just maybe, one day, I will have an urban garden like this one I found somewhere near Shepherd's Bush / Holland Park. And I will put a bucket outside, fill it with dirty water and call it Lucie's Pond. Maybe I'll call my brother to ask for UV lamp tips; I'll just have to make sure it's before 8.30pm. And then, we will have something in common again.