Misadventures on a Small Island

I’ve been here for 9 months. That is, I’ve been living in the UK for the same amount of time it takes to make a baby, give or take.

That’s a long time.

What are my thoughts so far considering I don’t post on this blog anywhere near enough, I hear you ask dear reader? Well, I shall tell you (even of you didn’t ask)

Here’s the first in my list of wants that I’ve compiled over the last 9 months:

I want to not live in perpetual winter.

Before moving to England I was under the foolish presumption that because I am adverse to heat and seem to suffer third degree burns from anything stronger than a 40 watt light globe that I wanted to travel the world chasing winter. That is, spend 6 months in Australia enjoying the mild temperatures and the odd cold snap, perhaps visiting the snow fields, and then spend the other 6 months in England frolicking in the snow and taking long, thoughtful walks along England’s pebbly seaside. In an ideal world, it is the perfect plan for someone with skin so white it’s almost translucent.

I was told that after a true British winter I would be depressed, wanting light and muttering about my precious. I scoffed. Oh, how I scoffed. To begin with, I would get to wear lots of clothes, which, in effect, would mean that I would need to buy lots of clothes. If there’s something I like more than wearing clothes, it’s buying clothes. It’s like a male version of Clueless in my head, but, you know, not gay. Furthermore, in the UK it snows in winter. The UK even has a place called Snowdonia (can I get an amen?). It even snows so much that you have to wear wellies sometimes. To work. How awesome is that, I hear you say.

Pretty awesome, I tell you. Pretty. Awesome.

Christmas came and went and it was the coldest winter since 1344 (or something like that). I learnt that if a single flake of snow falls on London, all public transport falls apart like Lego. Some days it took 6 hours to travel a total of about 30 kilometres.

It also gets dark very quickly in the UK during winter. In fact, some days the sun starts retreating at 3:30 in the afternoon. While at first this has a rather cool quasi-vampire feel to it, the novelty wears off after about 2 days. Then you start praying for sun. Even if you won’t get to enjoy it because it’s about minus twenty three degrees outside.

By the end of the winter I was depressed. I was wanting light so much that I would use Em’s Lightpod as a normal light around the house. I also started asking people to refer to me as Smeagol (wow… nerdy…).

Then Spring started. With a vengeance.

It started with the days getting longer, with pubs turning themselves inside out (people on the outside, empty on the inside) and the sun coming out. A lot. So much that at one point I managed to get sunburnt. In the UK. I know, it’s a strange concept.

Since then days have been filled with bright colours, happy music and sunshine. I have to remind myself that I’m in the UK, because it feels a lot like that sweet spot during Spring in Australia where it’s warm, sunny and humidity doesn’t really exist.

There are few bugs that annoy or attempt to destroy you here, the solution to every problem at the end of the day seems to either be a pint or a bbq, and TV is really bad during the summer so you don’t feel you actually need to be inside.

Summer in the UK is now possibly my favourite season.

Aside from severe bouts of hayfever caused by an assortment of plants, it may actually stay that way too.

And now I’m talking about the weather… I’m settling in better than I thought.

There has been a lack of updating, I’ve noticed. My getting a job is partly to blame. The other part is probably laziness and a desire to go places and see the UK. Mostly laziness, though. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a great job. I shall get to that at another time (once I’ve waded through the previous month’s goings on). This post is set between the 31st of October and the 9th of November. I’m getting there, I swear.

Thus the story continues. We headed back up to Letchworth on the Saturday for a birthday party. This meant remeeting most of Boo. Once again, this proved to be unproblematic and I didn’t seem to offend anyone at either dinner or drinks afterwards. This seems to be something I do of late. Not offend people. It’s becoming a habit. I must reassess my behaviours.

After a lovely night at home, Emily ventured off to her first day of work. I decided that this was the day to discover the leafy suburb of Twickenham. First thing I noticed was the distinct lack of leaves. there are a few, but not as many as other leafy suburbs like, say, Roseville. Thus, my labelling had failed me. Twickenham, however, is a lovely little place. There is a pub every 50 feet or so, and if you wander down the wrong street, you’ll end up at the Thames. Not a particularly picturesque view of the Thames, but the Thames nonetheless (That picture makes it look a lot better than it is. It’s mostly mud). There’s a lovely little street just off the high street with some nice shops, a few pubs and some restaurants. I imagine it would be even more lovely with people actually on it. However, I have yet to see any. There’s a rugby stadium down the road, Richmond down another and Windsor down yet another (although a bit further away). Twickenham is nice. Challenging it is not. As mentioned before, we live directly behind the police station. However, I’m fairly sure that if we left our front door open, lined up our valuable goods in the foyer and left a sign saying ‘don’t steal our stuff’, we’d be right, regardless of the police station.

I had a job interview the following day. This job interview, after a few weeks, led to a job. Not the job I actually interviewed for, but one that I kind of, sort of, expressed interest in about six months ago. The world works in very mysterious ways. In summary, I am very happy on the job front. More on that later.

After the interview I had a few hours to kill before meeting someone for drinks. I decided that instead of actually planning something to do, I would aimlessly wander around Covent Garden (Theatreland!) and try and find the elusive ‘Dress Circle’ theatre shop. Whilst it took me a mere four hours to actually find it (after giving up and asking someone), I think I managed to pass every single theatre in London. This served two purposes. First, I could see what was currently playing with my own eyes, and two I can now give you directions to anywhere in Central London, as long as I know which theatre it’s closest to. Bugger street names. Say you want to get from Waterloo Bridge to Leicester Square. Simple. Walk towards The Duchess and turn left when you see the Lyceum. Pass the Vaudeville and turn right at the Adelphi. When you see the Arts Theatre turn left. If you’ve hit Leicester Square Theatre, you’ve probably gone too far. Simple, right?

Anyway, I finally found the Dress Circle and fell in love. I also made frantic calls so that people would keep me away from this evil store until I had enough money to support my dirty, filthy habit. To summarise, the Dress Circle has everything to do with theatre. ever. If you can’t find it here, head to the National Theatre shop. If you can’t find it there, give up. It doesn’t really exist.

I made my way to Southwark for drinks late in the afternoon. I foolishly thought that London was a rather small place. I attempted to walk from Covent Garden to Southwark via Waterloo (for some reason). My feet were not happy. However, I did arrive earlier than I needed to and wasn’t going to partake in solo drinking, as I didn’t have any misery to drown. Instead, I decided to have a very quick look in the Tate Modern. Suffice it to say, I was impressed. I was definitely coming back to this rather large and ugly modern art gallery. I did, and therefore will tell you about that in another post. Drinking, food and merriment was had that night. A bit too much of the first, not enough of the second and from what I’m told, enough of the third.

After having the bed delivered (the highlight of the week, really. Not a dull week, just that I’m a bit sad), I decided to finish the week off with some of the more traditional museums. The Natural History Museum was my first call, and so I departed bright and early at midday and head off to see me some dinosaurs.

In a word, the Natural History Museum is… dull. However, in saying that, I couldn’t shut up about everything I learnt for the next week. In a nutshell, seeing stuffed animals and casts of skeletons doesn’t excite me terribly. There were a few interesting tidbits. The giant tree that they have dissected and placed on a wall and a ceiling is quite cool. Some of the precious stones they have in their collection are sparkly and nice. Apart from that, the only thing worth seeing is the building. The building itself is quite amazing. This purpose made building looks more like a giant cathedral than a museum. It is a beautiful building and a pleasure to walk through. However, this was achieved fairly quickly with nothing much else keeping me interested.

I ventured to the Science Museum the following day with a little hesitation. Basically, I was expecting a less cool version of Canberra’s Questacon. I was correct. It’s not that the Science Museum wasn’t interesting, it was the fact that it was entirely aimed towards people about a third of my age. At least I wasn’t too disappointed. I was expecting this, remember? What I wasn’t expecting was The Listening Post.

The Listening Post is an art installation based on real time, uncensored snippets of text from social networking sites, forums and discussion boards across the internet. It doesn’t sound like much, yet this piece had me captivated for almost an hour. It was interesting, yet also quite poignant and a little sad (in a depressing way. Not a pathetic way). It provides a bit of an insight into society and our behaviours by picking on phrases like ‘i want’ and ‘i like’. It’s very hard to explain, but it is, quite simple, brilliant. It’s toured around the place and I urge you to see it if you’re ever near where it’s playing. It’s running in London till February 21st if you’re interested. I’m sure your not. Fine, I’ll keep it all for myself then.

After having my life suitably enriched, I proceeded to watch tv. For an entire weekend (minus a lovely pub lunch). It was bliss. UK TV is, for lack of another word, brilliant (now we have Virgin TV, which is better. Than anything. Ever.). I couldn’t be arsed to actually expand on that point, but I will link to as many examples as possible.

Next Post: Tate Modern and The Movieum!