I am back in London again, staying with a friend near Twickenham. Thank God for friends.
My own flat in north London is still let out to tenants, so I can’t actually live there. I went back to collect some things from my attic the other day and found myself asking if I could use their loo. Their loo? Why it’s mine! Except it isn’t.
I love my flat. Believe it or not at my ancient age it was the first property I had ever bought, decorated and furnished all on my own, and I wasn’t half proud of it. Friends could not believe I was so willing to have other people living in it, and I think I was a bit surprised myself, but needs must.
They seem to be looking after the place, the young tenants, which is a great relief. In fact touch wood it has all been so far totally trouble-free, this letting. They have been there now since February and although they are using my furniture, seeing the place with their things in it, their pictures on the walls, their bedcovers, actually doesn’t feel as strange as I thought it would. If they stay there for the full year they’ll have lived there almost as long as I have.
Sometimes the prospect of possibly never being able to live in my own place again – which usually occurs around two or three in the morning – gets to me.
Will I ever be able to afford to live in London again? Will I ever afford to live in my own place anywhere? Or am I doomed to roam the world for the rest of my days? Let’s not think too much about that.
Meanwhile, it is surprisingly good to be back. It’s wonderful to see my kids again, and my friends, and to learn they are still okay. Still doing much the same old, which is strangely reassuring.
And London, here it still is, just as wonderful and twice as weird. There’s grass growing up the walls of the National Theatre and men standing on the roofs of buildings on the South Bank.
I feel as if I’ve never been away.
In a few days’ time I will be paying host to a group of American university students coming here to study for a month. I have to switch my mind from 19th century Australia to 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century London. (Being a tour guide must be much easier in Sydney.) I have to mug up on my knowledge of London. Who designed Somerset House, and when? Exactly how old is St Pauls? Who designed the National Theatre (and why)? When did the current Globe Theatre open? Who was Edmund Kean? What’s the story behind the Millennium footbridge? Where did Shakespeare live when he was in London?
And so on.
It is very good to be back.
But what happened to the weather??
