Reading reflections in the Bookinglass

I just came back from a lightning fast trip to London for a job interview. I was in the country for under 24 hours all-in-all. Swapping countries for the day is a particularly surreal experience especially if it’s your home country.

I was waiting at West Brompton tube station for a friend and an astonishingly red, comic sans cornered double decker bus stopped beside the tiniest set of run-down houses next to the enormous Earls Court exhibition centre. My mind just hadn’t got used to the idea that it ‘wasn’t in Kansas’ any more. I was giddy with the damp smells of my friend’s stairway to her flat, ‘It just smells so much like London…’ I exclaimed a couple of times. And of course, with smells and sights of buses once ridden on, I couldn’t staunch the memory spurts. Not nice memories I am afraid, the last time I was in London I wasn’t a very happy bunny – an unemployed graduate. Yikes, London without money is very grim indeed, Mr Dickens and George Orwell can tell you all about that.

On a lighter note, London is a multifaceted city and intriguingly so. After that long, cold winter in 2010 I spent a spring time pre-birthday treat with my boyfriend visiting Kew Gardens. It was relatively expensive to get in, over 12 pounds each, but worth it! I am an old soul, I would happily spend my birthday having a picnic in Kew rather than partying in town or bars. I look back at the pictures of Kew and smile, this is the London that I like to remember: that day during the Heathrow airport strikes meant that I could wander around looking at tulips and cedars in glorious silence.