So, I've lived in London for almost five months now.
One of the craziest things is the differences between when I lived in the middle land and here is that "going home" and "doing things" is so much easier.
So, for example, this bank holiday weekend. I know previously I've had "ok" bank holiday weekends. Some weekends I've even gotten drunk and woken up in San Francisco (seriously, I've never written about that?!)
Yeah, I could wander up to Piccadilly Circus after work, pop to a few bars and still be home before 8. These bars that had previously been "destination" bars, suddenly became locals. Well, regulars. And I like that.
But it still seems weirdly Hollywood - you know, in as much as people from the midlands still see a visit to these places as "destinations". And I hate to say "people from the midlands", but that is what this blog is about:
This very weird world in which I live.
Back in the Midlands, if I had nothing planned for a bank holiday, this was a disgrace. It was also rare. There were normally people that wanted to go out on the Friday night - celebrating the start of the bank holiday - and the footballers would want to go out following Sunday training.
But this was "going out". This was planned weeks in advance. Spontaneous nights happened rarely. This wasn't just "dropping into a pub" like I do now. Occasionally on a Friday someone would text "anyone fancy a night out tonight?" which would prompt "I can be out for 8:30ish"; "my tram won't get me to town until 9", "Can we make it 9:30 - I've only just got in and the cat's been sick and I have to order pizza", "bus is running late, I'll meet you guys at 10".
The pubs now are ten minutes down the road. My friends work in the city. If we want, I can text at 5:30 and meet someone before 6pm. I sometimes just drop in on my way home. My way home in my previous job was almost 2 hours from home. A walk, an hour train ride, a walk. And this wasn't just me. Transport links were such that if we were going out for drinks, people could be waiting half an hour for a twenty minute bus ride in (yes, we had taxis, but they were expensive). That's almost an hour - and that's pretty much at the least.
A couple of weeks ago down here I got home at around 10pm after a few drinks in town to a message from someone who was in a bar just down the road ... so I went straight back out, met him within 10 minutes and stayed out until 2am.
When I bought the house that I lived in for almost ten years, one of the critical selling points about it was that it would take me 15 minutes to walk to town. But that was me - other people lived further out; and that was also on this caveat that I didn't get back from work until 6:30pm; and that I was going out in town rather than some of the more tricky-to-get-to-suburbs. If I wanted to go out with people during the week, this required planning and - because of the amount of time it would ultimately take them to get home - was actually pretty unworkable spontaneously.
Now, this isn't an absolute now that I live in London. Yes, there is a lot going on, but some of these things can be a bit of a distance away. One of my friends in Camden invited me our for a rugby game a few weeks ago. Clapham to Camden is 30 minutes on the tube, not to mention the ten minutes walk at his end. But at least the tube runs until midnight even on normal, weekday nights. Buses back up in the midlands used to stop before 11pm and were at that time on between a 15 minute and an hourly cycle.
And, you know, people live far further east and west. Last weekend we did a pubcrawl starting out in Richmond. The starters were somewhat scant - we started with 7, and a lot of that was down to its westerly starting point. One of those starters came from Stratford and it took him just over an hour and a half (albeit via a bacon sandwich seller). Most of those who joined later had actually being doing other things during the day, but there were a couple who were only going to meet us once we "got more central".
I remember dating someone who lived in Tooting. For him, "heading into town" - that being Soho - was quite a big thing. They had a couple of local bars in Tooting to pop to, a bigger night out would involve Clapham; and that would be because a night bus back from Clapham could take half an hour. A night bus from "town" could be almost two. Believe me, I know - Sunday I walked for a good 10 minutes to wait 15 for a night bus which took not far shy of half an hour. So an hour in total from Tottenham Court Road to Clapham. That said, back up North on a Sunday (even a bank holiday Sunday) there would have been nothing other than taxis. And a huge queue for those with policies such as "we don't do journeys of less than 5 miles" (Uber only arrived as I left).
But, where the real fantasticness and - more to the original point of the blog, rather than just commenting on connectivity - fantasyiedness comes in occurred on Monday.
At around 5pm (bank holiday) Monday night my friend Brian rang. He wanted to watch a movie. I was in Soho photographing stuff. I said I'd be there at 7:30. Within two and a half hours I had had another drink, gotten the tube home, cooked pie and mash (I actually did, this isn't just a cliche) and gotten to Brian's - no tube, just a 30 minute walk (I stopped off to buy a sugar-free lemonade). At 11, after the film had finished and we had our post-movie chat, I poddled back home.
All sorts of awesome.
But what makes this particularly weird from my perspective is that whilst I lived up North, I stayed with Bri down South. When I turned up on a Friday I "moved in" for the weekend. I turned up with a rucksack, I stayed the nights, and then I went off to the train station.
Brian was my base - my second home.
This Monday there was no "moving in". I turned up in my own time, watched and left. I went home. Home. Not to a train station but to this weird, fantastical London home. I left with nothing - nothing at all, rather than hulking a rucksack around with me. This is the dynamic change not just to the relationship I have with my friend, but to the whole relationship I have with London. Despite the fact that I used to visit 3/4/5/6 times a year, that's what I was - a visitor.
Now?
I am a Londoner.
