House in Hackney

With the visa wheels still turning, I decided to make the most of my stay in England by moving down to London, where lots of old and new friends are living.

After a couple of weekend visits testing the water, I started looking for a place in the Dalston / Old St / Hackney area (because that’s where the cool kids live) on the 1st of October. I was amazed by how easy it was; 30 minutes after my Gumtree ad went up, I was already getting phone calls about places which fit the bill. That first weekend, I’d found a great place just west of Hackney and moved in that Friday. The whole thing took a week, start to finish!

I’m sharing the house with three Aussies: Tom, Anna and Nick, all from Melbourne. We have the bottom two floors of a converted Georgian house, with a kitchen and living room on top and bedrooms and bathrooms downstairs. I have a little double room with a window onto the garden; it’s still quite spartan, and I’ll probably keep it that way so that I can still travel light when the time comes.

Good gracious, London is fun. It’s strange getting used to the idea of regularly skipping really good nights and interesting events, just because there are so many options all the time: brilliant.

Frrreezing

The trip back from Costa Rica went off without a hitch. Only two things of note: the first was the delicious hot cinnamon bun I had at San Jose airport, made all the better by the preceeding 2 months of endless beans and rice combinations. The second was the fact that I managed to accidentally smuggle a knife onto two international flights.

My carry-on bag was checked by security normally in San Jose (X-ray machine, cursory search by the man in gloves) and again in Houston (more X-rays, more poking and prodding). It was only after I’d cleared security that I went to get out my phone and realised my Leatherman was in the bag, complete with 3-inch razor sharp blade.

Considering how much of a hassle security is, you’d at least expect them to find a large, lethal block of metal in an otherwise pretty empty bag…

Back in England, I went pretty much straight to my niece’s naming ceremony near Nottingham. A nice little excuse to get the whole family together and see the Welsh contingent who might otherwise have been a stretch to visit. The newly named Bea was very chilled out throughout the proceeding, as all the kids were I suppose. Perfect nap timing by the parents left them all in an angelic daze.

I spent Christmas with the parents up in Bury which was nice and relaxed, although there’s not really too much to do up there any more so I left to come down here to London pretty sharpish.

I’ve managed to wangle a free place to stay in Mayfair, which is pretty sweet. The offices of one of our investors has a spare bedroom which was available over the holidays. It’s actually not particularly convenient as most of my friends are either in Hackney or Canary Wharf – pretty much the other side of town – but I’ve enjoyed mincing down Oxford Street, delivering dismissive snears to as many mono-lingual tourists as possible. I went to Cambridge, dahling.

New Year’s Eve was relatively low-key, compared to some of the craziness of San Francisco, but great fun. I spent the evening in a bar with a bunch of friends and friends-of-friends before heading back to a house party, staying up till the early hours sipping peppermint tea.

My plans for the next few weeks are still pretty unclear. I know I’m going to Cambridge tomorrow, and Winchester after that. Depending on how quickly my lawyer can get the visa application in, I’ll then either go back to Central America – maybe Panama – or head straight back to San Francisco.

Looking forward to leaving this climate! It’s pretty much a 30ºC temperature difference Nicaragua to here, and getting more… -10ºC in London today!