I had a moment tonight where it was just James and I and we were doing something together. It was spontaneous and exactly what I needed at that exact moment. I'm so very thankful that those moments exist and I'm reminded that, though our surroundings may alter and our "normal" turned on its head, we'll have each other through it all and, very likely, more of those moments.
And, just to really bring this back on topic to London, here:
As mentioned before, my cultural experience, where London is concerned, consists mainly of overly-curated film and television selections. I don't mind this one bit, but it occurred to me that I'd like to find the London equivalents for all the various city-specific online content I dearly enjoy here in Ottawa. My very first foray into this turned up The Londonist. This seems like a pretty all-around site for information and news-like items, however, I'm still trying to search out something a little more finely tailored to my interests. The search continues, however passively, for the time being.
On the plus side, London, unlike Ottawa has a far wider variety of iPhone and iPad apps in all sorts of categories. Perhaps I'll write up a little about them in the next little while.
Ok, can I just say, I have nothing mind-blowing or insightful or overly humourous to say. I'm just really relishing the idea that I'm going to be living in London soon. When the years started passing and James and I set up some roots here in Ottawa, I truly believed my "get up and move a zillion miles away" stage was over and that I'd missed my chance. But here it is and I'm spending a lot of my waking hours thinking about how lucky we are and how much of an adventure this is all going to be. And in London, of all places.....when I used to think, in my internal story, where I'd imagine myself living it has always been London. *sigh*
Not everyone gets the chance to uproot themselves and start over somewhere in the safest and most secure situations. We really do have an incredible opportunity unfolding for us.
I thought it might be fun to keep a little running list of the Top Five topics related to the move. Some completely ridiculous and some totally conceivable. Like this one, for instance, this one is entirely reasonable: the Top Five Foods I'm Looking Forward to Eating More of in England!
1. Clotted Cream: this stuff is incredible and we will buy it from time to time, but it's imported, not so fresh and expensive. I can't wait to get my hands on some fresh clotted cream!!
2. Fish and Chips: self explanatory....I love fish and chips! The one portion I ate during my only other trip to London was not enough. I can't wait to hunt down a killer fish and chips.
3. British Sweets: ok, this is sorta cheating since I have access to a pretty awesome selection through my job right now, but there's so much more to British sweets that I'm looking forward to exploring and revisiting. Is it wrong that I want to position us geographically near a local confectionery so that I can keep my fix close at hand? Yeah...I might have a problem...
4. Curry: prior to meeting James, I didn't eat curry. I had a host of other culinary experiences, but curry never made it onto my radar. In fact, I didn't like curry for a long time after we met and I didn't have the heart to tell his kind, good looking man who kept making me dinner....so it happens that I learned to like curry. It's a good thing too, from what James tells me....he makes it seem as though that's all we'll be eating, but I suspect that's just wishful thinking on his part. For my part, I'm just eager for a few new curry experiences.
5. Monster Munch: if our friend Helen is to be believed, this is ambrosia for British people. I'll hold off on judging this one until I've sampled a few flavours, but let's just say, expectations are pretty high given all the praise and glory Helen has been heaping on this for years. I'll keep you posted.
So yeah, there we go....a Top Five Tuesday theme! Yay!
When this whole "move to London" event was just a dangling carrot for some far-away possibility, it was March. I remember this because we were preparing to leave for the airport while simultaneously downloading the job descriptions and requirements. We were headed to Vancouver to see good friends and family and now we had a sixteen page document to read on the way. If you know me at all, you'll know then, that once there was a remote chance of such an event taking place, I jumped on it and let it occupy my day-dreaming. This is nothing new. I fuel my day dreams with all sorts of themes and story lines, nearly all of which are as tangible as steam from a kettle. Regardless of where I am or what I'm doing, even if I am at my most content, I am always day dreaming of something else. It isn't a "grass is greener" phenomenon, it's the dialogue to the book I have in my head that I maintain simply for my own amusement.
Given all this, you can only imagine what sort of fodder a London job posting would provide! And then, as if preordained (in my head), this image appeared in my news reader.
Designed by Nick Prints, this is an adorable diagram of all that London has to offer. Can you believe that my mind immediately decided, "yes, well, better add a star to this reader item so that I can go back to it when I'm ready to write a blog post about it in my "moving to London" blog." See? Always dreaming and thinking and producing my own internal storyline. It was like my own personal sign that our move was already decided and we just had to wait out the details. Ok, well, not quite. I'm not nearly that much of a hippy...or any part of a hippy at all, really. But still, how much of a delightful coincidence to hear about the job posting and have this arrive less than a week later to further taunt me.
Anyway, as it stands, I really do adore this print and just might have to pick up a copy for myself once we arrive (I refuse to pay to ship something to Canada that I'm only going to have to drag back to the UK, even something as tiny as this). Then, I figure, I can go about using this as my checklist of what one should most certainly do whilst in London.
Seriously, this isn't as big a deal as the title makes it out to be, however, I ran out of shampoo. Ok, that's a lie, I ran out of the conditioner. But when they're a two-step treatment, when you're out of one, you might as well be out of both. And, of course, today was a hair washing day. So what does any of this have to do with London? Well, in a last-ditch effort to avoid using James' two-in-one that I will not name, I checked the cupboard for a miracle. As it turns out, I still had the shampoo and conditioner that I brought back from Italy! I set to work lathering up and remembered the ordeal of finding them in Italy and how in every country we've been to, we've always ended up searching for something completely pedestrian and how it's always an adventure.
I get the feeling that I will be living that experience, probably with hilarious results, over a period of a few months upon arriving in London. We won't be packing an arsenal of personal products in our suitcases and I sure as hell am not devoting precious cargo space to soap when I could be bringing over yet another "I can't possibly live without this" sort of item. So aside from our basic toiletries kit (James insists this is a "sponge kit"), we'll be stocking up upon arrival and the great product comparison will begin.
