In a wider sense, south London is a provincial city hidden inside a metropolis.
OK, so most of Simon Jenkins’ column on how harshly south London is treated politically is a bit over the top and incendiary (“South London is to become Britain’s Gaza Strip”, for example), but it’s a good read for an exploration of exactly how south London is very much the lesser half of the city.
I’ve lived in south London since 2005, first in New Cross and Deptford, and then in/around Wimbledon for the last couple of years. When I first moved to London, I was up in West Hampstead, north of the river, and it really is a bit of a culture-shock to cross the Thames.
Things are just different here. The Tube is practically non-existent, and everyone uses proper trains to get around. That, and the ubiquitous buses, which are everywhere. As the article points out, there have been numerous mooted plans to extend various lines south, but nothing has ever really come to fruition.
But I love south London nowadays. It just feels more like a home, a community, and there’s less of the isolation which it’s easy to envelop yourself in in other parts of London. Where I live now, it’s very green, which is a bonus, but still has that London feel to it.
Now, if only they’d build a few more Tube stops…
Daft Punk is playing at my house.
Cottage Pie
Twice-Baked Potatoes
When I can be bothered, I’m a half-decent cook. It’s just not that often that I can be bothered…
Anyways, examples A and B are above: cottage pie on Saturday, and twice-baked potatoes tonight. Easy, yep, but tasty!
Also, I like potatoes.
Sunday:
13.30hrs: Finally get out of bed after lounging around (and other activities) for a couple of hours after waking up.
13.31 - 23.59hrs: Lounge around on the sofa, watching TV and DVDs, not daring to leave the house because of the cold. Re-heat yesterday’s leftovers for dinner, for added laziness.
Monday:
01.15hrs: Go to bed, because the stupid NFL game lasted forever and went to overtime.
01.16 - 02.30hrs: Fail to get to sleep, due to lack of tiredness as a result of getting up so late.
02.31 - 05.29rs: Sleep, relatively well.
05.30hrs: Get woken up by the girlfriend’s alarm.
05.31 - 06.00hrs: Awake, due to girlfriend coming and going in and out of the bedroom.
06.01 - 07.00hrs: Sleep fitfully, waiting for my own alarm to go off
Rest of the day: Wonder why I’m so damn tired.
One of these days, I’ll learn.
Pro-Tip: King-size duvets on a double bed are the absolute business.
I need a bathroom in my basement. My father-in-law’s tendency to take a dump in the bathroom that’s right off our living room EVERY TIME he comes over is causing my gag reflex to flare up in uncontrollable ways.
Reblogged from: jss
Originally posted on: Scattered Jigsaw Thoughts
The publications we have delivered to the house:
Private Eye: fortnightly politics and media news and satire. Probably the best magazine in Britain, I reckon.
The Economist: weekly politics and business news and opinion. A lot of text to get through each week, but also very informative.
The Zimbabwean: an alternative newspaper about Zimbabwe which aims to tell the real truth about Mugabe and what is happening in the country. It’s British-based, but for every subscription they have, they are able to print more copies in South Africa and get them into Zim, where they are sold at a dirt-cheap level. Highly worthwhile cause, and it’s amazing how passionate the editor and main writers are. The girlfriend writes for it occasionally too.
Bravissimo: quarterly lingerie catalogue for the larger-chested lady. It just happens to be lying around our living room from time to time…
Ugh, Monday and Tuesday mornings really do suck. The girlfriend goes to work early on those days, and when her alarm goes off it wakes me up, well before I actually need to get up.
Actually, I have one of those body clocks that wakes me up ahead of the alarm going off, so I’m usually half- or fully-awake and lying there, waiting for the alarm to sound. This means I’m awake stupidly early on a Monday and Tuesday, which is a pain in the ass.
And I can never really get back to sleep for the extra hour either, as she’s in and out of the bedroom, getting dressed and banging around. By the time I physically get up, I’ve been in and out of crappy sleep for the best part of an hour and a half, and feel exhausted.
Maybe I should haul my ass out of bed and go for a run or something. I’m awake, so might as well use the time to good effect…
This weekend, I went back to my parents’ house to see them and a bunch of friends. My dad had come up to London the night before to see Monty Python with me, and he drove the girlfriend and I back on the Saturday morning.
Inevitably, the Saturday night was spent with a whole load of mates, drinking away until the early hours, but on Sunday the girlfriend and I met up with another group of friends to walk a couple of our dogs in Lacock.
Lacock is a little village near my hometown, and is gorgeously quaint that it’s been featured in countless films and TV shows whenever an 18th century street or backdrop is needed. And the Abbey there is massive too, so it has featured in one of the Harry Potter films, amongst others. This photo is of the high street, and whilst I know it’s not quite the same with cars parked everywhere, you can really see just how old and unchanged the buildings are.
We went out into the fields to give the dogs a good run-around, where one of them was chased by an angry cow, and basically got covered in mud.
And then it was off to the little ford in the middle of the village, where Angus could join various other dogs splashing around. Angus is getting a little old now, so he wasn’t quite as rumbustious as the others, but was happy to go look under the bridge and have a little paddle.
All in all, it was a good way to shake off a hangover. Especially as we followed it up by going for a carvery lunch with my mum and dad. You can’t beat a good Sunday roast!
Match of the Day on TV, college American football on the laptop, the girlfriend sleeping on my lap/shoulder, and a couple of vodka-orange juices.
Life is GOOOOOOOOOOOD.
