Welsh Tourist Walking

London took me aback today, and really made me smile.

Having to find my way to the South Kensington post office at lunchtime  (which I did, thankyouverymuch Kathy! ;o)), I stayed in that area for lunch, finding a nice little cafe I haven't known was there for about six years. Had a very tasty and very filling panini, and caught myself thinking "Well, this is a great little find - I'll have to come back here..." before realising that no, I really won't. I don't live here anymore. I don't live in London. I'm Welsh Tourist Walking.

That rocked me back on my heels for a bit. Then, as I found my way back up to my office (and again, may I say - did that just fine and dandy!), I kinda fell in love with London all over again, but in a slightly different way. A way that only works if you listen, if you don't shut yourself off behind walls of music. I heard a youngish man with two small kids pik up a traffic cone and blow through it like a trumpet, or an elephant's flatulence, to make them scandalised and giggly. Heard the squeals of youngsters and the whoah-whoooahing of adults who had taken the opportunity of it being December to go ice-skating down by the British Museum. Saw a couple kissing, right there in the street, as though the self-important Kensingtoniands weren't even there. Saw a couple of young women wearing fur-lines sparkly red Christmas Deely-Boppers with no hint of self-consciousness. It made me smile broadly, probably unnerving the bejeesus out of my...fellow...tourists.

You know what it's like? It's like the last time we saw my mother-in-law. As good fortune or providence, depeding on your interpretation, would have it, we were able to leave her in the company of friends and family, and it was a happy last impression to have of her. We knew that it was false of course, that she'd wake up in the morning and we'd be gone, and she'd go on until she couldn't go on any more. But in our minds, she'll always be there in that final snapshot, surrounded by smiles and good people. Today, I saw a truth like that - London is going to continue just fine and dandy without me. People will still skate by the Museum, and do silly things to amuse their kids or young siblings. They'll still jab each other, and stab each other, and mug and rape and kill each other, and they'll go on being born, and raised, and finding whatever is out there for them, even if that's nothing, in this city. But pretty much my final snapshot of it as part of it turned out to be overwhelmingly positive and Christmassy, like a Richard Curtis movie version of the real city beneath.

Of course, having found a great little cafe to have lunches I won't have, the Disappearing Day continued in much the same vein. Chatting to Karen Pulley, she mentioned a place in Covent Garden that did great Sunday lunches.
"Yyyyeah," I mentioned, "the time to tell me this would have been last week, when I still had a Sunday left in the city..."

This evening, I met up with Karen Who Shall Be Called Mae for our final meet-up while I live here. We went for dinner at her local Italian, which appeared to have a menu consisting of "27 Varieties of Carb A", followed by "36 Varieties of Carb B", and to have an attitude to portion size that wouldn't have been out of place in the Elephant House at London Zoo. The garlic bread starter - was a pizza. The pizza...was about the circumference of a human head. Fortunately in one respect, I chose the wrong Carb B, a pizza laden with chili flakes, which meant I couldn't eat that much of it.
"See, you should have discovered this place earlier," she opined.
"Nom," I agreed, putting away the starter at an unseemly rate of knots. "S'alright, I'll have something different next ti-"
"Oh,"I said, chewing mechanically. "Right." I sighed. If I'd had a bell, I'd have rung it round about then.
Unclean! Unclean! Welsh Tourist Walkin' here, Welsh Tourist Walkin'...

It's time to go Home...