While my WordPress tab was dormant for a while, our lovely Londontown experienced summer and autumn all within the same season and I’ve failed to notice because of all my whining about the sun but this city never looks better except in fall.
It’s here that you can meet the only (I assume) person in the world with the word sausage in Greek tattooed on his arm.And on a boat on Thames that you can sit looking at pink skies at the end of September.
In this crazy city, people run half marathons in gorilla costumes that dry out in terraces the next day and Margaret Thatcher graces the walls of Brick Lane dressed up as Che Guevara.
Here it’s acceptable to get your colleagues anti-stress bananas as leaving gifts and it’s an unwritten rule to buy only one (musical) candle for the 30th birthday cake.
Broken washing machines will lead you to the neihbourhood launderette where you can listen to the life stories of those who run it and who were born and raised even before council estates were built where you now spend your Friday nights sipping vodka.
In London it can be 27 degrees at the beginning of October. People will be flocking its parks squeezing the last drop of sunshine before the chilly days ahead. The rubber duck cakes in the shop window will quietly suffer while their sugary frosting becomes one with the paper doily.
And when the weather gets a bit colder again, you still don’t mind that iceberg of a Mojito that ends up being multiplied by the number of people that have come to wish you a happy birthday.
While the days get shorter and the temperature drops, kids in skeleton outfits roam the streets and pumpkins with scary smiles rot on window sills. The fallen leaves muffle the sound of noisy shoes and hands are hidden in coat pockets to keep warm.
On lunch breaks, I listen to Billie Holiday singing about ‘yesterday’s cold mashed potatoes’ and drink hot caramel flavoured coffee. And while looking at the ice rink being built at Somerset House and the lights coming on I think that I’m glad to be here, now, no matter the weather and what season comes next.
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