London Again
Monday, January 8th 2007 - 10:41 AM
I went to London again on Saturday afternoon - to catch up with some dodgy Aussie squatter mates of mine in Brixton. There was a bit more of the usual London stress and frustration than there was last time - mainly due to having to drive through that godforsaken city.
I was coming from the north east and Brixton's kinda down towards the south west, which makes it awkward to get to. When you combine that with the appalling signposting (or, mostly, lack of it) in Britain, life starts to get interesting.
It should have taken me just over an hour, really, but it ended up taking two. Where i managed to go wrong was out towards Southend, a fair way out of London, when i got onto the wrong road into the city. I was trying to take one that brings you quite quickly and efficiently to Tower Bridge. But, because there were no signposts, i ended up on the A12 - which is the road to hell!
Getting from Tower Bridge to Brixton was mildly stressful, because i hadn't driven that way for over two years (and hardly ever, even then) - and, of course, because Brixton's not signposted until you've almost gone past it. But, amazingly, i managed to find my way straight there without going wrong once.
Going home was a different story though - i managed to somehow miss a turning, or take a wrong turning, or something. But it didn't take me long to work that out and get back onto the right route. Getting home took about half the time it took to get there.
I met up with my friends at the squatted pub where one of them lives. It's a dingy, claustrophobic sort of a place - mainly because all the steel anti-squatter shutters are still fixed over the windows for security. It's certainly not the sort of squat you could mistake for rental accommodation - unlike some houses i've lived in in London.
It was good to see them though, as it had been a couple of years since last time i'd been in this part of the world. And it was good to catch up on news of other friends etc. I passed on a bit of news, about some friends' having a baby, from Australia. So that's now safely inserted into the European branch of the grape vine, and will no doubt be known by everyone who knows them by now - as well as a few who don't.
While i was there, i was given a glass of Croatian rakia - a spirit that i'm very fond of. This one was flavoured with coffee beans and slices of lemon, which had been soaking in it for a few weeks. You can buy rakia in Croatia for a few Euros for a 1.5 litre water bottle full.
Later on, we went out to an Indian restaurant in Tooting and ate some great food. Tooting is apparently the place to go for curries in sarf London.
All in all, it was a good trip, and it was great to catch up with people again.
As an indirect result of the trip, though, due to word being out that i was back in the country, i got a phone call this morning to tell me another very old Australian friend of mine, living in London, died a few weeks ago.
You can see some of my photos of Afganistan at
WillKemp-Photos.com/afghanistan