Out with the old in with the…

Another milestone reached, today after much toing and froing we booked our flights!
Woohoo!
June 8th 2015 we say bye bye Britain.

And let the panicking commence. We actually booked the first two months accommodation a few weeks ago, which felt mostly exciting. This next step has left me all ‘eek-y’ I know it’s real. I really want to do this, I am super excited about going on this adventure. And I have lived in the same home for the last twenty years, change doesn’t come easy to me it seems. So as well as being excited I’m pretty bloody terrified.

What an arse.

I pretty much loathe where we live at the moment, all the charm, and believe me it had a lot, drained by a disruptive and disrespectful pub landlord neighbour. Buskers with their amplifiers and electric saxophones ranging from mediocre to OH HECK PASS THE EARPLUGS awful have turned our Portobello pad from a peaceful haven into a prison of constant interruption and noise. The arrival of a Sainsburys would have sealed the deal had we not already decided we had had enough.

And it isn’t just these blots on the landscape that have us glad we are packing our bags. Be warned I am going to sound particularly old ladyish now, where has the community spirit gone? Where is the care and concern for the well being of your neighbours that made this particular corner of London such a respite from the rush and push of the rest? For it has certainly gone, replaced by Porsche Carreras and sweaters neatly tied round the neck of checkered shirts. Priced out of a neighbourhood famed for it’s multiculturalism the lovely have left and been replaced by the bland, banal and buffoon.

And so we must move with the times and accept that the Portobello of old is lost forever.

Bearing all of this in mind my being scared of the next steps seems a little daft. But these walls have been my castle for twenty years and leaving them does not come easily. If I could safely transport her brick by brick to pastures new and quiet I would. But I can’t. And clinging to what was is a wasteful and needy past time. I don’t know how long we will be gone for. I doubt we will ever live in London again, maybe not even in England. But I don’t know what the future holds anymore than anyone else does so I’m going to focus on right here and now and the delicious if slightly terrifying joy of having booked our flights into the unknown Xx

JHubz on an empty London Underground Train September 2014