Speaking of Trees

Is it just me or are there are some fairly weird trees in London? Besides palm trees in a nation that is proximate to Sweden, I mean. Take a look at this number I spied in Kensington…

.A tad Day of the Triffids if you ask me. Someone thought it was decorative. I find it decorative only in the context of…Planet Zeenob.

Or get these oddballs that line the road that leads to the drop-in centre where I volunteer. It’s a slog of a bike ride – along Kensington High Street, through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Connaught Village, up Edgeware, past Maida Vale, through Brondesbury, up Kilburn High Street to, kid you not, Shoot Up Hill. As soon as I see these trees I’m zeroing in.  If I lived on this street, I’d never stop shaking my head out my front window…

Funny how we change. There are some things about myself that I just know are durable (horrifically rare loss for words; lack of hips and/or waist; rampant apple/yogurt consumption) and some things that I can feel altering within me. A new weariness with denim. An increasingly early awakening time. A growing appreciation for…flowers. Colourful, delicate, burgeoning flowers. The sex organs of plants. The heralds of spring. The best of all momento mori.

You’d be surprised how often you find bouquets marked down to £1.99 at Waitrose. Those make my week.  But in London in March there’s no need to look far to find foliage.

These made me feel positively Wordsworthian…

These put me in mind of a Pound poem…

These just say love me and I do, and the whole blooming city that goes with them…

What can I tell you? Flower power and weird trees. Things could be worse.

Climatic WTF

Granted, it’s hovering around 16 degrees here this week. A mild spring will make up for wearing cardigans all July long so here’s to that. As for snow there’s been admittedly barely any i.e. the airports have stayed open and shoes have been a constant possibility. Excuse me, I should explain. Years ago I struck a deal with myself that I’m allowed to complain about cold as much as I want as long as I never complain about heat.

Bottom line: it’s not nearly as warm here as I thought it would be.

I moved here in 2009 partly to get away from cold winters. The UK promptly had its coldest two winters in years and Toronto its record-breaking mildest. Apparently, global warming is at fault. Melting ice in arctic Russia has created high pressure systems which spread from Scandinavia – bringing frigid air here and keeping warm air from the Gulf Stream out. I’ve read the Gulf Stream might also be getting screwed due to melting ice in Greenland.

Please God, no. No more long johns, and puffer jackets, and shawls to watch teevee…no no NO.

Part of the problem is that I was a kid here in the mid to late 70s hence I experienced the great British summer droughts. Not that I interpreted them as such at the age of thirteen. All I knew was the sunbathing was great, I could live in my cut-offs, and the swimming off the (yellow) Isle of Wight was smashing.

If you’ve never been to the Museum of London I highly recommend it. In the contemporary London section there’s a book put together by futurologists with visions of how London might look after climate change hits home. Monkeys will be as plentiful as pigeons. Wind turbines will line The Mall. Race will disappear as sunblock becomes opaque. And the parks will be given over to agricultural production since no land can lie fallow. A crop of pineapple is predicted. Surreal, no?

Not as surreal as you might think. One of the things that hits me here – the way it hits me in Vancouver now that I think of it – is the sight of the occasional palm tree.

I’m, like, what? London-on-the-Nile? Londonmolinos? I don’t get it. Just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Bring on the palm trees…If that’s what these even are. Good thing I don’t get a lot of readers or someone would comment I’m the kind of clunkhead who doesn’t know a Northern such-and-such when she see it. As I do fairly often in London’s ritzier enclaves, when I never fail to think, Fancy that. Thank you, London, for yet another fancy that. I look forward to the cacti.

Minor Cons, Major Pro

There are things that bug me about Britain.

That’s as strong a verb as I’ll use when it comes to, say, the hermetically sealed fruit around here. Confronted with six little red plums nestled within a plastic-wrapped plastic punnet lined with bubble wrap, I long for the bulk offerings of Miracle Mart. To almost every apple in the UK there is a styrofoam tray. Zucchini come three to a bag. Enough with the produce prophylactics.

I’m also adverse to council tax, which is basically tax on your rent, which is a high three figures p.a. in most London boroughs even if you inhabit a hutch. Yup, property tax minus property ownership.  Sucks!

Okay, I wish women here didn’t bring boys who are long past their baby teeth into the women’s changing rooms. If he’s got cursive writing I don’t want him seeing my boobs. If his shoe size is climbing towards mine he shouldn’t want me seeing him either.

What else? I’m running dry already…

The rain is London is statistically average for European capitals so no gripes there. Paying a premium to call a UK cell phone is a drag but free incoming makes up for it. I wish they had transfers here but at least buses are cheaper. Yes, the infernal British class system, but there’s one of those everywhere.  If anything I’m irritated by the antipathy towards the middle class. Middle class here is a pejorative adjective used to denote undignified cultural striving. Frankly the middle class doesn’t strike yours truly as pretentious so much as sentient. Count me in despite my hutch.

I wish sidewalks here weren’t as crowded. I wish I didn’t have to bring acai tea from Canada. I wish the men weren’t prettier than the women. Otherwise I’m content.

And I saw something the other day that I just loved. I was broaching Hyde Park corner, crossing over from Green Park to Wellington Arch where Constitution Hill meets Duke of Wellington Place. I’ve mentioned before London is full of horses – cops, guards, state coaches, processions, riding schools and more.

We’ve all seen pedestrian lights, many cities have bike lights. Well check out the horse light. Can you see the little red horses do not go?

Better yet, check out the request button for the horse light.

It doesn’t just look high, it is, eight hands worth. All I need now to make my London life complete is to see someone using it. Or use it myself. Tally ho, the pro tally is growing.

Doctor Who?

Another picture of Olympia out my window but this time more specifically a photo of the line-up to get into The Doctor Who Experience during half term (aka the UK March break). God knows what TDWE is. Don’t ask me to research it. I do know it evolved out of a cult, long-running, latterly revived British sci-fi series. As somewhat of a holy rite my brother and dad used to watch an early doctor back in the seventies – the loopy guy with the mega scarf. I didn’t join in. Not because of the sci-fi thing, although there’s that. It’s just that every once in a while something comes along that’s big and British and I just say no.

Coronation Street? Never been there. Eastenders? East, west, north, south, who cares, I’m not watching. When it comes to the talent shows in these parts I start boggled and stay that way. Simon Callow’s the guy with the tight white T-shirts and Grecian Formula brush cut, right?

I’m a bit of a Pavlov’s dog in fact. There’s an interminable radio soap opera called The Archers that besmirches my beloved Radio 4 daily (wretched omnibus episode Sunday mornings).  The moment I hear the twangy musical intro I lunge to switch off my little DAT as if it was spewing Reverend Sun Myung Moon mantras. I wish I didn’t know someone called Nigel fell off a barn roof and left behind orphans. Thank God I know no more than that.

I assimilate, honest. It’s just I pick and choose.

Football for instance is another no. If I’ve gleaned a microscopic amount about ice hockey and even less about baseball I see no reason to bone up on man soccer. I don’t need a team to buy gross shiny T-shirts from. I don’t need to study league tables. I don’t need to spend weekend afternoons shivering at a stadium.

Okay, I could kick it up a notch and get into a higher pub gear. Every time I move to England I tell myself I’m going to have a local; I never do.  A good pal in my hood tells me there’s a groovy gastropub near us everyone goes to. She’s the kind of lady I trust to drag me there one day. So there’s one pub I want to go to. One.

Meanwhile I’m fine watching MasterChef as if my life depended on it, shouting along to The Moral Maze while doing the dishes, adding steamed, vacuum-packed beets to my dietary staples, hankering after my Evening Standard newspaper and telling my friends, Well done you! and Meet you at mine and Bollocks! Selectively indoctrinated and proud.

Skirting the Issue

I’ve written before about my appreciation for the short hair around here. The Brits have as much of a thing for a good bob as girl-next-door tresses. Thank you, forward hair thinkers. But I wonder whether the tolerance for a short crop in these parts might have a countervailing equivalent? Maybe British gals can get away with being shorn because British gals are skirt and dress CRAZY?

I remember it happening to me when I lived here as a kid. I left Ottawa a tomboy who scowled her way through all manner of family photos due to being forced into a stupid dress. The next thing I knew I was wearing skirts on Saturdays. We were allowed to wear mufti at school provided it was a skirt or a dress so we all stockpiled. It went from there to voluntary. I’d go home at school holidays and keep the jeans at bay to the degree my mom’s head shook. What was with all the skirts? I was just as English as the English was what.

Those days ended. I went back to Canada and acclimatized for the life of me. Speaking of climate – I’m a long john lady come winter. I need two layers of trousering to keep the shivers at bay – not half of one.  I need the kind of down parka that in no ways flatters skirts. I need a cardigan atop my cardigan – not a bodice. How do the English chicks do it? And where do they find those skirts that pull up over their bums just so with a kick pleat for striding purposes? Where do they find stretch tweed?

Sticking heels under yours jeans and grabbing dangly earrings and a cute top – sorry but that’s dressing up in the Toronto girl way. Nice try. Sooner or later (sooner) a British dude expects a skirt.

I dated one gent a commuter train ride away, which entailed a tube change to get to the train station and of course an overnight bag strung across my shoulders containing my track shoes, hiking shoes and  clothes until Sunday. Quite a lot to cope with Friday afternoon in a rush from work. Eventually I apologized for jeans again.

“I know, you need to work harder,” chap said.

GAAAHHHH!!!!!

In the way these transactions have probably gone down since time immemorial, I hereby pledge to pop into a skirt the moment I am invited out anywhere fancy-pants. It’ll be my feminine end of the deal, I get that, I’m up for it. Except that I’m not really into it at all. I want to wait out from now until May slurping yogurt in my track pants ignoring whatever suspenders are shoved in the back of my knicker drawer and frocks are lurking behind my blouses.  No hotel bar could be worth the strain.

Come summer I will indeed eyeball my sundresses…and likely nix them when the mercury skulks around 20 yet again. Sorry, English guys, skirts are your thing not mine.

Selective Shamelessness

My name is Louisa and I’m a Tesco shopper. There, I’ve said it. So sue me, shun me, rise above me. Do whatever it is you need to do to us filthy transgressors.

Let me explain. When I first moved here it was with a certain amount of bravery: I’d just had the most toxic break-up of my life. I needed to pick up shattered self, hot wire my ego back together, and get the hell out of Charlottetown of all places. A stint in London seemed more promising than dragging my dumped butt back to Toronto. I booked a flight and went for it. The moment the plane’s wheels were up? All need for bravery got sucked out the window. I was fine, it was all behind me. Indomitability and I were working partners once more. Hello again, optimism, hello, future.

Very fortunately for me a generous friend of a relative took me in upon landing. We thought at first I might pay rent and stay. I swiftly proved too irritating for that. Nothing I was doing as such, just my bare bones nature imposed on that of someone living a busy life who needed her space after all. That was fine! I was fine! I was jogging around my new hood already! What was that I spied? A grocery store! Clever me! Why not head straight there for my first batch of UK groceries? How positive was that?

“I found a supermarket and got loads of my special supplies!” I told my hostess, lugging in bags full of olive oil, broccoli, apples, oatmeal and still quite a few vulnerabilities.

“Tesco?” she eyed my ceremonial loot and said. “Oh NO. Tesco is the ENEMY!”

It has been muttered that Tesco squeeze the family farmer like no other conglomerate. Who knows whether more of Tesco’s eggs are battery laid, or more of Tesco’s grapes sprayed, or more of Tesco’s chicken something you ought to eat when you’re down with strep throat. What I do know is that Tesco isn’t posh. Not one bit. Whereas the sight of a Waitrose fills me with a sense all’s right with the world because the world is sufficiently middle class (upper-middle class, actually; if I wanted middle class I’d go to Sainsbury’s) with Tesco such socio-demographic bets are off.  Okay, it’s no Iceland — there’s a produce section. But Tesco offers zip in the pretension department. There we have the real sin.

“We tried to economize by shopping there but it’s simply not worth the degraded quality,” another friend shivered when I mentioned to her that Tesco was the enemy.

“Where are you?” a British man in my life texted. I’m so honest. “Tesco. I nevr want u 2 c me this way,” I replied.

Newsflash:  I can assure you that Tesco’s pink lady apples are no worse and sometimes better. Total  yogurt is generally a little cheaper than elsewhere, although they dick with my mind and vary yogurt prices neighbourhood to neighbourhood – we’re talking £2 instead of £2.50 for the love of god. What the hell. They have a premium in-store line of organic balsamic and onion marmalade etcetera. Some Tescos are so huge you get oppressed by choice in that good old North American way. They’re frigging everywhere.

The British class system is notoriously pervasive but every once in a while I just say no.  I say, I’m going into Tesco for bin liners, rooibos and vacuum packed steamed beets and I don’t care who knows it. Just don’t expect me to get so much as one sock from hideous, foul, bottom-of-the-barrel, ugh ugh ugh,  nasty Primark. I never said I wasn’t selectively ashamed.

Huge and Chefless

I’m discovering that one of the worst things you can feel is nostalgia; missing lost things is killer. One of the least corrosive forms of nostalgia is a wistfulness for businesses that have gone under. RIP Woolworth’s. Nice to know you, Pan Am.  Didn’t ever know you, Peacocks. Little Chef…say what?

I read last month in the UK press that Little Chef had gone griddle up. Apparently, it was a chain of roadside restaurants that predated modern British motorways but ended-up linking them. In a country, England, where I’m no driver but I’m guessing you can get from one tip to another in a day, long haul drives were initially punctuated for many by a stop at a Little Chef for highly pedestrian grub.  Not as much of a road trip mentality exists here, paradoxically: when you can’t drive for days you’re more unnerved about driving for hours. For years, egg, chips and a cuppa at a Little Chef cured many a chauffeur’s woes.

I went on a minor road trip this weekend, to Poshtershire, aka Gloucestershire, where the Cotswolds happen north west of Oxford. You get there by taking an M out of London then an A or two past the palace of Winston Churchill’s birth (Caution, Private Property) until the hills start to roll.

An hour in, just short of Oxford, we needed petrol and a loo break. It was a nippy day so getting out of the car required a dab of fortitude.

Take a look at the frozen fountain. Take a look at the vast mall behind it. Wait a minute, that’s no mall…that’s a motorway service station.  Yes, an enterprise devoted purely to servicing fatigued travellers with about ten different food outlets, an entire grocery store, a handbag boutique, a florist, lavatories with eighty stalls per gender, and a seating area that would dwarf a hockey rink..

Why was I so rattled? I don’t expect the biggest things to be Canadian but I definitely expect them to be North American. For all I know, Route 66 has Leviathon-like rest stops with every convenience imaginable. I’ve never seen anything so sprawling as this place anywhere I’ve driven, however, which takes in Charlottetown to New Orleans with  detours. “Oxford is very tony,” my journey mate said. “There aren’t many other service areas this vast.” There better not be or I’m left feeling extremely Yahoo amongst the Houyhnhnms. Not only do we colonials not do oldest, we don’t necessarily do largest.

I went to one of the two Starbucks and ordered crow.  Who needs nostalgia in this brave new world of gargantuan amenities to be found in relatively small countries? (The empty beer bottles you see aloft on a growing sheet of ice, which, if I were in a real snit I’d take to be metaphoric, were not ours.)

Please Pass the Torch

I’m not one for real estate euphemisms or cutesieisms; I’m too much a hard-nosed reality junkie. But the fact is, I do live in West Kensington. All the maps say so. Truly, it’s not pathetically aspirational to talk of West Ken. There’s also North Ken where no one need feel too, too grovelly either.

But it seems a little sad to me to lunge with, let’s face it, a dab of desperation at proximity to one of the swishest patches of real estate in the world i.e. Kensington proper. Fine, South Kensington can get away with it. South Ken has collected enough ritzy allusions of its own. Personally, however, I’m forthwith putting my foot down when it comes to references to West Kensington – unless I’m talking property forensics with an estate agent while stabbing at a map.

After all I live right on the Hammersmith Road. (It ain’t pretty but it somehow gets a the, as does the Holloway Road, coincidentally or not one of my former haunts.)

“How are things in The Hammer?” my pal M asked last week. “Ha, ha,” I said. Then I squirmed. Then I cracked and specified. “Actually, I live just west of where Kensington High Street becomes Hammersmith Road,” I reminded dear M. “Yes, yes, I know,” M soothed. She of snazzy Belsize Park. Truth is it would take me ten minutes to walk to Hammersmith Tube. There’s a station closer than that .

What I’m trying to say is that I live not quite opposite from, but solidly kitty corner to, a massive London landmark which is all I need mention to situate myself accurately for any Londoner who’s been west of Hyde Park. Ladies and gentlemen, I live in OLYMPIA.

I’m compelled to spell it in caps because right outside my window, as I type these words, I am reminded of OLYMPIA for the eighth time hourly…

It puts one under pressure, actually. Adjacent to Olympia, surely one should live an Olympian life full of strength and consumption…Watch me heft this girder. Pass me that entire cake.  Time for my next marathon…So far so not Olympian. But I may yet stir my way to the perfect wild mushroom risotto . I may dare attend a spin class at my new gym. I may wash the windows or even the blinds. Feat-wise there’s hope.

Olympia began as an National Agricultural Hall but early on, back in the 1880′s when rational recreation was holding sway, that didn’t seem quite good enough. For sure the Victorians rebranded. Olympia was one result. Long may it…

…provide healthy amusement and reinvigorate by brilliant  demonstrations the national love of athletic exercises and contests of skill; to  raise the tone of popular taste by entertainments and displays which shall be of  the purest and highest character; to educate the masses, aye, and even the  ‘classes’ by exhibitions of art, science and industry.

Sorry, gotta go. Somehow all of a sudden blogging doesn’t cut it. Seriously, I’ve got to limn a pastoral scene, isolate a particle, and erect a bridge. At the very least launder my duvet cover which just got two pounds of smog belched on it as a result of three minutes of open window. Ah, life in OLYMPIA.

Induction? Who, me?

Lord knows I dig the residues of formality to be found in British culture. The excuse me’s when inadvertent bumping happens. The Dear So and So salutations that start emails. The unadulterated courtliness of fishmongers.  Mongers at all. The delivery of any expertise which goes back three times as many generations as I’m used to collecting pomp along the way.

Sometimes I just assume British culture is more formal. Case in point: inductions.

Upon being informed of the need for my first induction I was, like, say what? Needles here are injections so you can understand my slight flurry.  Wasn’t there also a hint of Reverend Jones-like brainwashing behind the term? Or ingestion. What gets ingested? Nothing good, right? God forbid I was in for an epidural.

It turns out an induction is a plain old orientation. A here-are-the-ropes, get to know them situation. I had a mini one at my EFL school before starting. Here’s the staff room, here are the registers, here’s where to steal fresh board markers kind of thing.  I had an unforgettable,  invaluable two weekend long induction at the children’s’ charity where I volunteer, to help me gear myself to kids at risk in ways that would make them and me comfortable. Thank you, fate, for that tutelage. Just this Friday I had an induction at my new gym to find out which buttons to push on the cardio equipment. I was harangued into it by the sales guy who kept citing “health & safety,” which, as any resident of these fair isles knows, is a phrase by necessity followed by “regulations.”

The thing about the UK is that it’s also a cover-your-ass culture. Covering one’s arse is an extreme sport here. I’ve just had to pay £186 in “office and inventory fees” to have a gorgeous sweet Polish chick from my new flat’s estate agency go through every single thing in my very minor bachelorette-ette-ette down to the crap kettle and perma-stained Ikea trash can. God forbid that same kettle not be here when I move out, along with the vintage microwave. I was also shown the never-to-be-turned off switch for the electrical pump. Yes, this place is too old for modern drains and needs remedial electric draining. Only Miss K didn’t mention that. She wasn’t sure what the mystery switch did actually. We surmised it had to do with the bathroom fan and I left it on. Luckily so. The entire building would have flooded in an hour if I had given in to my anti-bathroom fan bigotry. So said the maintenance officer who arrived at my door at 10pm my first night after my downstairs neighbour reported a flood for entirely unrelated reasons (that have to do with crazy fierce water pressure, who knew, and the British tendency to simply hoist hand held sprays up high vs a proper shower, and the necessity never to leave such shower sprays unattended when you decide to fill up the half bath while you’re choosing which is your sock drawer instead). The maintenance officer was formal; he thought it best I trade my towel for track pants before opening my door.

What am I trying to say? That I’m three inductions down, and I obviously should have had a thorough induction to my own flat. Dollars to donuts you’ll get an induction or two if you come here. Here’s to all of us figuring out what the hell we’re doing before we get started. And to that nice young personal trainer explaining again how to play the fish game on the rowing machine. And to me giving someone an induction one day. I’ll make it a goody. My fear is gone. I’m after induction suction.

Heard and Seen Recently – Only in London

I’m in the midst of a move so the fact that I’m blogging at all is extraordinarily narcissistic.  The least I can do is keep it short.

#1 Heard from an Oncoming Jogger in Hyde Park

These were two thirty-something dudes running. They were big, burly types in an Eton-rugby-team-now-hedge-funders kind of way. They were pounding fast in my direction but I had time to hear one of them say to the other, “…Swan Lake. It was my first time at the ballet. I absolutely LOVED it.” Would this come out of the mouth of a Bay Streeter with a six-pack? Doubt it. Case closed.

#2 Heard from a Schoolboy After Football in Hyde Park

These were eleven or twelve-year olds from my brother’s old school, actually, which uses Hyde Park as its sports ground. Bypassing a post-game crocodile I heard one boy say to another, “You’re over-exaggerating, Andre…No, you really are!” At first I wanted to stop and say, “Yo, kid, exaggerating is by its nature overstating something. You can’t over-exaggerate.” Then I cut the little guy some slack. What manner of Canadian schoolboy engages in even such mild sophistry? No kid who doesn’t want to get the crap pounded out of him. Case closed.

3. Twenty-something Gent Reading a Novel on the Tube

Okay, it’s not that you don’t see young guys here with big books in their hands quite often, which always gladdens my heart. But this chap was reading Birdsong. Sure it’s part of a war trilogy. But still – ladies and gentlemen I give you fiction, I give you fiction with a delicacy of title, in the hands of a young male of the species. Seen that on the Bloor line lately? I didn’t think so. Case closed.

I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m gloating. Living here reveals my philistinism a lot too often for gloating. I’m just sooooo digging the cultivation is all. Don’t get me started on the history…