I have to keep reminding myself that I have now been living in London for four months, because I've developed the confusing habit of referring to everything that's happened since as 'a couple of weeks ago'. I don't know whether it's me misremembering the length and effort of my activities, or whether London simply condenses people's timestreams. In any case, I have been bumbling along in a time warp and happily adapting myself to a new way of life.
London is a sensible-shoed city. It has to be because of all the miles and staircases. I am very pleased by this. Sometimes I see someone hobbling slowly in too-tight heels and I feel footsmug. I exchanged style for comfort long ago - not that I should have to choose, but as I've explained before, I blister embarrassingly easily, and I've never been gifted with impeccable dress sense. I now plan to live in either TOMS, slippers, or flipflops, for the rest of my life.
I'm still trying not to rush but it takes every gram of self-control I have to maintain a steady pace when I hear the acceleration of the many-footed rush-hour beast approaching from behind in the underground. Sometimes I find myself running down the stairs to catch a train that I know isn't even there yet. Haste is a social contagion.
Last Wednesday I decided to take the stairs everywhere instead of the lift, so at the beginning and end of the day I walked up and down the four flights of stairs at home, up and down 86 steps at my home tube station, 146 steps at my work tube station, and four flights of stairs in the office an uncountable number of times throughout the day. It couldn't be much more effort than stepping into the lift and pacing until it arrives, I thought. I'm reasonably active: I'm not running as much as I used to (cities lengthen the running mile and it messes with my head) but there's no reason for me to eschew stairs. I played badminton that evening and my legs had gone. Vanished. They'd abandoned me somewhere during the day - I'm pretty sure they lay discarded in a dank underground stairwell somewhere - and I was left lurching pathetically around the court as if I were stepping through treacle.
People seem to be wearing elephant pants. I don't mean underwear - I haven't been checking out people's trunks - I mean those beautiful, loose cotton trousers with elephants printed on that everyone wears in Cambodia. But here people wear them to work. It seems that there are so many people here wearing so many different outfits that you can wear anything to anything. Coming from my years of unexciting professional attire I find it hard to reconcile offices with safari, and haven't yet made the move to take my elephants to work.
People walk either very quickly or very slowly, just in front or just behind me. The very slow people are laden down with over-sized shopping bags which knock against the backs of my calves, and the very fast people are overflowing with haste. Both generally have their faces in their phones, and sometimes blunder into other people. This rather annoyed me, until I did it myself, surfacing from the wrong tube exit and performing a google maps-powered pirouette on the pavement, forcing the man behind me to suddenly skip daintily sideways to avoid walking through me.
The streets are not paved with gold here as Dick Whittington was led to believe, but on Tottenham Court Road down from my work they are paved with marble and brass fittings in places. There are invisible buildings everywhere, and constructions that don't make sense. Buildings the width of a single doorway are slotted into a gap between two large terraced houses, and inexplicable little homes are placed squunk on a corner as if thrown down by a Kansas cyclone. Sometimes entire buildings vanish or sprout from one day to the next. A street near to my office looks like it's hiding 12 Grimmauld Place, and some days there are definitely more houses squeezed in than usual. My office is in a new building constructed inside the courtyard of an old building, and I can look through the windows right into the old part and watch people go about their work, seemingly oblivious to yours truly peering creepily through their front window. It makes me feel on the right side of Muggle.
London is a sensible-shoed city. It has to be because of all the miles and staircases. I am very pleased by this. Sometimes I see someone hobbling slowly in too-tight heels and I feel footsmug. I exchanged style for comfort long ago - not that I should have to choose, but as I've explained before, I blister embarrassingly easily, and I've never been gifted with impeccable dress sense. I now plan to live in either TOMS, slippers, or flipflops, for the rest of my life.
I'm still trying not to rush but it takes every gram of self-control I have to maintain a steady pace when I hear the acceleration of the many-footed rush-hour beast approaching from behind in the underground. Sometimes I find myself running down the stairs to catch a train that I know isn't even there yet. Haste is a social contagion.
Last Wednesday I decided to take the stairs everywhere instead of the lift, so at the beginning and end of the day I walked up and down the four flights of stairs at home, up and down 86 steps at my home tube station, 146 steps at my work tube station, and four flights of stairs in the office an uncountable number of times throughout the day. It couldn't be much more effort than stepping into the lift and pacing until it arrives, I thought. I'm reasonably active: I'm not running as much as I used to (cities lengthen the running mile and it messes with my head) but there's no reason for me to eschew stairs. I played badminton that evening and my legs had gone. Vanished. They'd abandoned me somewhere during the day - I'm pretty sure they lay discarded in a dank underground stairwell somewhere - and I was left lurching pathetically around the court as if I were stepping through treacle.
People seem to be wearing elephant pants. I don't mean underwear - I haven't been checking out people's trunks - I mean those beautiful, loose cotton trousers with elephants printed on that everyone wears in Cambodia. But here people wear them to work. It seems that there are so many people here wearing so many different outfits that you can wear anything to anything. Coming from my years of unexciting professional attire I find it hard to reconcile offices with safari, and haven't yet made the move to take my elephants to work.
People walk either very quickly or very slowly, just in front or just behind me. The very slow people are laden down with over-sized shopping bags which knock against the backs of my calves, and the very fast people are overflowing with haste. Both generally have their faces in their phones, and sometimes blunder into other people. This rather annoyed me, until I did it myself, surfacing from the wrong tube exit and performing a google maps-powered pirouette on the pavement, forcing the man behind me to suddenly skip daintily sideways to avoid walking through me.
The streets are not paved with gold here as Dick Whittington was led to believe, but on Tottenham Court Road down from my work they are paved with marble and brass fittings in places. There are invisible buildings everywhere, and constructions that don't make sense. Buildings the width of a single doorway are slotted into a gap between two large terraced houses, and inexplicable little homes are placed squunk on a corner as if thrown down by a Kansas cyclone. Sometimes entire buildings vanish or sprout from one day to the next. A street near to my office looks like it's hiding 12 Grimmauld Place, and some days there are definitely more houses squeezed in than usual. My office is in a new building constructed inside the courtyard of an old building, and I can look through the windows right into the old part and watch people go about their work, seemingly oblivious to yours truly peering creepily through their front window. It makes me feel on the right side of Muggle.
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