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The end of an era

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There’s been a distinct lack of posts on here lately and for that I’ll apologise: life got very busy, very quickly and I’m no longer living in London! My ‘big OE’ is almost over but fortunately there are plenty more travel adventures to be had before I’ll anchor myself on New Zealand’s shores once more.

While leaving London was always on the cards, Russ and I left London in what felt like a bit of a hurry. So it’s been several turbulent months of wonderfulness, craziness, love, laughter, exhaustion and tears. I suspect I’ll mostly remember the good bits – but that’s not to downplay the stress involved with finishing up at work, moving out of our flat, shipping stuff home and booking a few flights through Europe and Asia before we resurface in Aotearoa in a few weeks.

Which is what’s happening right now: we’re in the Europe leg of our long journey homewards, and I’m writing this post on a train from Gdansk to Krakow. We’re 2 hours into a 9-hour train ride so now’s as good a time as any to catch up on things. So that’s pretty exciting. I’m loving the freedom of travelling. Although it hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m unemployed and that this is it for the next few weeks…right now everything just feels like a holiday. And although I know we won’t be going back to London, part of me calls that place home and can’t quite believe that we won’t be back there anytime soon.

The good thing is that before we left London, Russ and I managed to cram in some amazing ‘bucket list’ type experiences that I’m going to blog about retrospectively, whenever we have a free moment in our travels. These experiences were way too fun not to share – but as I’m talking about things that happened back in June, July and August, the timing of the next few posts might feel a wee bit out of whack.

So the blogging is back on – and if you also want to follow our worldly adventures over the next couple of weeks, Russ and I have made a joint travel blog (awww, ain’t nerd love so cute?) which you can check out here: home2.nz. I’ll keep posting my personal ramblings here, as the travel blog isn’t that well suited to my introspective essay-length posts 😉
But I’ll share links to anything fun we post from our adventures.

And in the meantime you should totally check out my girl Claire’s amazing article for thewireless.co.nz, where she reflects on what it’s like coming home after the Big OE. I read this story intently a) because she’s one of my dearest friends and she was my rock for the first 2 years of London living and b) because the girl can fucking write and she deserves massive kudos for this article! It made me happy and sad at the same time, which I suspect is how it’ll feel adjusting to the Kiwi pace of life. Transitioning into London-living wasn’t easy so I expect transitioning back the other way will be a struggle too – but one I’m finally ready for.

More posts to come…

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London is…

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View from the Shard

I’ve been thinking a lot about my time in London, now that I’ve lived here for over four years.  And it got me thinking: how could I possibly begin to describe the wonderful roller-coaster that is the expat experience?

Here’s a starter for ten, at any rate. To me, living in London is…

  • Busy and lonely all at the same time
  • Equal parts filthy and elegant
  • It’s dancing in the middle of the road with a kebab in hand
  • Making friends on the night bus…
  • …and convincing 10 strangers on said night bus to play charades with you
  • Not having time to read that magazine you bought a month ago intending to have some ‘down time’ to read it
  • Crying on the tube about some boy who wasn’t even worth it…
  • …and not even giving a shit what the other passengers think as you snotball into your tissues
  • Then remembering that moment, fondly, years later
  • It’s fine dining and swanky bars
  • Followed by dirty chicken at 2am
  • It’s underground nightclub raves
  • It’s breathtaking art right on your doorstep
  • It’s illegal art-squat-parties-in-abandoned-office-blocks (sponsored by that dodgy cider brand you can’t recall)
  • There’s creativity beyond anything you’ve ever seen
  • There’s all those amazing weekend jaunts to Europe
  • Landing in Gatwick at 730am on a Monday and rocking up to work fresh from an Amsterdam bender, suitcase in hand
  • Trips to the countryside
  • The dodgy shingle beaches
  • The cream teas, cottage pies, eton messes, and many a full English – mmm
  • The many Be At One cocktail bars, dangerously close at all times
  • The realising you’ve tried most of the cocktails on the Be At One list, mostly due to their 2-4-1 offer
  • It’s rudeness beyond anything you’ve ever seen
  • And kindness that exceeds all expectations
  • Constant, exhausting, exhilarating change
  • Where you’ll learn to hate and then love the NHS
  • Where you’ll meet the most interesting people with the most interesting jobs
  • Where you’ll realise that what you thought you wanted maybe wasn’t what you wanted after all
  • It’s a place where someone always wants something from you: be it your money, your time or your ass
  • It’s de-humanising and re-humanising at the same time
  • It’s the fizzing, gleeful delight when summer rolls around and you can picnic in Hyde Park again
  • It’s the simple joy of lazy afternoons in London Fields, followed by insane nights out at The Dolphin on Mare Street – if you’ve never seen a lady swing a bar stool wildly over her head, you haven’t lived
  • It’s buying your entire summer wardrobe in Primark for £60
  • It’s an endless, always-changing cycle of wonderful new friends  and colleagues
  • Plus the solid crew who’ll always have your back
  • It’s nights on the sofa watching back-to-back episodes of Orange Is The New Black because you can’t afford to go out
  • It’s rice-and-bisto for dinner when you really can’t afford to go out
  • It’s champagne and oysters when you can
  • And on the topic of oysters. If the world’s your oyster then surely  London’s the pearl
  • She’ll win you over whether you want her to or not
  • And she’s definitely a lady. A crafty, bonkers, wonderful, brutal lady
  • She’s your boss
  • She’ll make you her bitch
  • And then one day you’ll fight back like you never fought before
  • You’ll win her respect
  • You’ll win your own respect
  • And everything gets a little easier
  • Because, when it all comes down to it, London is life

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Comedy review: The Dark Room with John Robertson

You awake to find yourself in a Dark Room. You have four options:

1) Try to find the light switch

2) Go North

3) Weep

4) Wonder how you found yourself participating in a live-action-video game on a Tuesday night. Then knock back your free mojito and throw yourself head-first into the game.

Isn’t life wonderful? There really is something for everyone when you live in London. When a friend invited me to my favourite cocktail chain to see comedian John Robertson’s live-action-video game The Dark Room on Tuesday, and that the £10 ticket fee included a free mojito, I thought ‘ooh, this sounds different’.

And I wasn’t disappointed. Those of you who remember text-based-adventure-games from the 80’s and 90’s will be all over this like a rash. Remember those DOS-based games where you, the player, were faced with a decision at every ‘level’? Those really basic games where a typo could ruin your move and a cruel logic ruled the world? I’m thinking Hugo’s House of Horrors, Leisure Suit Larry and the like. The games were absolutely maddening, sending you round and round in circles, ‘stuck’ at certain points because of a flaw in your decision 3 levels back. Or whatever, I don’t care, I’m definitely not getting wound up by flashbacks of early-morning-Monkey-Island-induced-rage as a tween.

Well imagine that same set-up. In real life. In a bar. Sitting on a bar stool. Battling against other ‘players’ for creepy prizes specially chosen by your host for the evening, comedian John Robertson.

Robertson’s show takes place in, well, a Dark Room. He dims the lights and roars instructions, abuse and flattery at his ‘players’ as we take it in turns to try, and fail miserably, to beat the game. The aim of the show is to get out of the room, step by step. And I’ll be damned if we could even find the light switch. We gave it a really good crack and Robertson is an amazing games-master. He psychoanalysed and belittled each player’s decisions, with just the right balance of contempt and admiration at how appallingly bad we were.

Apparently only a handful of people have beaten the game in the time Robertson’s been running this show. I can see why. It’s a challenge worth trying though, and I’d happily play again.

WANT TO PLAY TOO? You’re in luck! John Robertson will be performing The Dark Room at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He’ll also be performing it twice a week in June at Be At One’s Wimpole St and Smithfield branches.

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How to: have a cheese-only dinner in London

I like to eat. I like to eat cheese. I like to eat lots of cheese. And sometimes, that’s all I want for dinner. You got a problem with that? Sorry, I get a bit crazy sometimes: “J’adore le fromage!”
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So when my boyfriend and I wanted to treat ourselves to a different kind of date night, I emailed Vivat Bacchus in London Bridge with a proposition. I’d heard about their famous ‘cheese room experience’ but I feared it was more of an ‘after-dinner’ or ‘pre-dinner’ kinda thing: or even worse, that they might let us select some cheeses to take away but that would mean WAITING TIL WE GOT HOME TO EAT ALL OF THE CHEESE. Outrageous.

Clearly I needed to clear a few things up before we ventured there, because we didn’t want dinner. We just wanted glorious, stinky cheese.

Thankfully, Vivat Bacchus weren’t fazed by this request at all and we scored a ‘dinner’ reservation for 7.30pm that night. On arrival we were seated in the main restaurant, and ordered a glass each of lovely pinot noir and port to sip on while we waited for the cheese room to become available (it’s in hot demand – only a few of you can go in at once with the special cheese expert).

INSIDE THE CHEESE ROOM:

  • It stinks to high heaven
  • It’s glorious
  • It’s a bit chilly but you’re so busy drooling you won’t notice
  • The cheese expert will ask what you like and give you teeny tiny samples to help you decide which cheeses you’d like on your custom platter. All of them are Good.
  • Each cheese portion costs roughly £5, so we asked for a £25 platter of 5 varieties: a stilton, a stinky, vacherin-like soft cheese, a fruity, wine-infused pecorino, a chevre infused with ash, and a soft, herby, spreadable cheese. I can’t recall the names of any of our cheeses but it was a hella good combination

Once you’ve made your selection, you go back to your table and wait patiently while they build a beautiful, customised platter of nuts, fruit, dips, honeys, bread, crackers and all sorts of goodness carefully selected to enhance the flavours of the cheeses you chose.

And you will nom til your heart’s content.

Successful date night, tick!

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‘Asking for it’ in London

"Adrienne Truscott's Asking For It"
“Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It”. Image source: Soho Theatre

The other night I invited my friend Sarah on a ‘lady-date’ as it’d been awhile since we hung out just us two (as fun as the menfolk are, sometimes you just need girly time). On a whim I’d purchased tickets to a Soho Theatre show I saw in TimeOut. My hasty purchase was based on the the title of the show (“Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It”) and the AMAZING promotional picture to the left.

Knowing that and little else, I told Sarah vaguely that I’d bought us tickets to a ‘feminist comedy’ and suggested we met before the show to eat burritos and drink margaritas at Tortilla, because we are super-classy-ladies who only dine at the finest eateries of Londontown *snort*.

On the afternoon of the show I Googled the show we were going to see and became more and more curious. I’d neglected to notice that Adrienne is sometimes referred to as “the naked comic” and that she would perform her set dressed “from the waist up and the ankles down.” I just assumed the promotional picture was a stunt and not a preview…

The more I read, the more I liked. I like gutsy comedians, I’m a feminist, and I’ve followed the Everyday Sexism project and contributed to pieces. It was starting to look like this Adrienne Truscott show would tick all the boxes (so to speak…).

So, over a pre-show margarita, I let Sarah know we should probably prepare ourselves for full-frontal-bush, and she said “Right on – fanny time!” or something like that and that’s why she’s my friend.

We arrived at Soho Theatre and were promptly seated at the table closest to the stage – or, as Truscott bellowed, the seats with “the best view in the house – talk about up close and personal!”

Truscott is a masterful comedian and powerful satirist. I’m wary of spoiling any of her jokes – which are equal parts side-splittingly hilarious, and just-a-bit-uncomfortable. The thing that really struck me is how she carefully maintains a tone of fun throughout the entire show. I mean, we’re talking jokes about Rohypnol, social commentary on some very disturbing American legislation, and yet the show never feels grim. In your face, yes, and quite rightly disturbing, but it’s also Plain Old Rowdy Fun with a capital F. She dances. She strip-teases. She guzzles cans of gin and tonic. She cheerfully offers the crowd her ‘rape whistle’ which we’re welcome to use if it “all gets too much” – and she regularly checks in to make sure we don’t need the whistle “yet”.

When an audience member ducks out to use the loo she whispers “Was that the rapist? Coz, statistically speaking, one of y’all in the room has gotta be a rapist…just saying!”

In short, her show is utterly brilliant.

Maybe it’s the dancing. Maybe it’s the talking faces she projects onto her bare abdomen and nether regions. Maybe it’s because she’s a subversive genius. Maybe it’s because she flips preconceived notions on their head, sideways and right back round again in ways you never saw coming. Whatever it is, I can tell I’m going to be thinking about this one for days, possibly even weeks.

Buy tickets immediately. Stay for the finale, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

 

The Show: “Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For it” 

The venue: Soho Theatre, 12-31 May

Tickets: £12.50-15 

 

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Why everybody needs to visit spa LONDON at least once

I’m loving life right now and it’s all thanks to a 3-hour visit to spa LONDON this weekend. Midway through grey, gloomy January I decided a girl’s day out was in order and it had to be far enough away that we could ‘look forward to it’ for a few weeks. So I booked myself and two lovely gals in for the Thermal Spa Experience (£25 pp for 3 hours, bargain) at York Hall, Bethnal Green and waited patiently, gracefully, like laaaadies, for our day to roll around.

The Hammam room at York Hall: Image copyright Spa London
The Hammam room at York Hall: Image copyright Spa London

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT YOUR £25 THERMAL SPA EXPERIENCE GETS YOU: I’m going to put it out there: I’m not made of money. Some women can afford to drop a couple hundred pounds on spa days that involve champagne, massages, colonics, seaweed wraps, caviar facials and other witchcraft indulgent treatments I will probably never experience. I’m not one of those ladies. To be honest, super-high-tech beauty treatments terrify me and even if I had that much cash I’m not convinced I’d feel comfortable in that kind of scene.

What I do like, however, is feeling pampered. I adore uninterrupted relaxation time and I like it even better if it’s in a lovely, serene setting. I can’t really create any semblance of serenity at home, so I outsource that shit to the experts. And spa LONDON do serenity well. The basic spa experience gets you a fluffy robe, towel and fancy flip-flops and full access to all areas of the spa. I’m talking aromatherapy steam rooms, saunas, turkish baths, plunge pools and monsoon showers. I’m talking complimentary fruit bowls, chilled lemon water and peppermint tea on tap. I’m talking squidgy loungers with stacks of magazines, waiting just for you. I’m talking three hours without checking your damn phone and complimentary use of ghd hair straighteners and nice handcreams once you’ve finished relaxing.

We started out in the sauna, migrated to the icy-cold plunge pool and had to recover from the experience with some hardcore reading time on the loungers. Next stop was the eucalyptus-aromatherapy-steam-room, followed by some quiet time in the tepidarium and then back to the loungers. Basically all you do for three hours is lie down in one room, and wander to another, and repeat the process. Eat, sleep, relax, repeat. Amazeballs. If you’re feeling extra indulgent you can add on facials, pedicures, massages and such on top of the base price. Add-on treatments start from roughly £25. 

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS PLACE? WHY SO CHEAP? HOW? I’ll let the spa LONDON people speak for themselves, using the blurb from their website – they’re aiming “To make the therapeutic and recreational benefits of spa culture more accessible, affordable and widely available.” So basically the kind folks at spa LONDON work in partnership with local councils to deliver day spa experiences that locals can actually afford: in some locations you’ll get a cheaper rate if you can prove you live nearby. And that’s A-OK by me.  There are five locations across London so chances are, there’s a spa nearish.

DETAILS: Visit http://www.spa-london.org/thermal-spa/ for more details. Male-only or female-only sessions are available at some locations; the York Hall branch we visited offers the women-only service on Saturday afternoons.

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I like to ride my (Boris) bicycle

We’re in the middle of a so-called-heatwave here in London. By that I mean the sun’s come out for a wee bit. The sky is blue. And the week ahead is meant to bring more of the same. On Sunday I actually felt brave enough to leave the house wearing only jeans, a t-shirt and a cardigan. Translation for the unobservant: I left my coat at home. Stop-the-clocks and hold-the-sarcasm: that IS a London heatwave.

I’ve mentioned before that when the sun hits the sky, Londoners GTFO outside en masse. This Sunday a gang of us went for a wholesome group cycle trip through the Regent’s Park, my second-favourite of London’s royal parks (Richmond wins hands down). I was wildly distracted by the actual cycling, so forgot to take many decent photos (story of my life) so you’ll have to trust me on the basis of the three sketchy photos above. IT WAS REALLY FUN, YOU GUYS. Even when we had to dodge around slow-walking pedestrians. And navigate the canal paths without falling in.

This was my second outing on Transport for London’s Barclay’s Cycle Hire scheme. The first group cycle experience took place on Christmas Day and we were a sight to behold: eight Antipodeans struggling their way from Shepherd’s Bush to Buckingham Palace and back again on dwindling light and dwindling beers. It was, hands down, one of the best experiences I’ve had while living in London. A definite ‘pinch me’ travel moment.

TIPS FOR YOUNG PLAYERS: The Barclay’s Cycle Hire scheme, while brilliant, can be confusing for first timers. Or if you’re rushing. Rushing is evil and I believe the source of many many life screwups. Here are my top 5 tips for getting the most out of this fantastic, convenient service:

  1. READ THE FINE PRINT: The £2-for-24 hours “bike access fee” that pings up on screen first isn’t the total charge you’ll be footing. Slow down and read the fine print. I know a few people who’ve come unstuck here by hiring a bike in a rush without reading the T’s and C’s . You’re actually paying £2 for the right to use the bike for the next 24 hours. The actual usage fees are added on top of the bike access fee.
  2. WORK THE FREEBIES: The first 30 minutes of your ride are free. So if you only wanted a short-but-furious trip, you can squeeze in a free ride as long as you return the bike within half an hour. You can do that several times in the 24-hour-access period you paid for earlier.
  3. SPEND SMART: While a 59-minute cycle will only cost you an extra £1 on top of your access fee (bargain!) the hourly price charge leaps considerably after 90 minutes so it’s economical to keep your trips short. Or just dock your bike regularly and swap it for another one. Also, if you’re gonna be one of those super-keen people that cycles all the time, it might be worth paying for weekly or annual access to the scheme.
  4. PLAN YOUR ROUTE: It’s really hard to check Google Maps while you’re cycling. Not to mention dangerous. Oh, and, pretty much impossible. Suss out your route before you start pumping those legs, baby.
  5. READ THE FINE PRINT, AGAIN*: If the docking station is full, don’t panic. Simply select ‘No docking point free’ at the terminal and follow the on-screen directions to get an extra 15 minutes free. This is great as it allows you time to find another docking station, without being charged. *This helpful tip is in the fine print. I missed it the first time round. It’s good advice and saved us some cash as we tried to return our bikes just as everyone else had the same idea.

Tell me tales of your own Boris bike adventures. Where are the best places to cycle? And/or to stop and rest a while, perhaps at a fun foodie establishment? I’m listening.

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Mmm, MEATliquor

MEATliquor restaurant has been on my ‘London bucket list’ for some time now.
So when my flatmate decided to host his birthday dinner there last week, I was thrilled – I will leap at any chance to binge on charred meat. Mmm, meat.

We went on a Thursday night and queued for roughly 30 minutes outside, then another 30-40 minutes at the bar. The kind folks at MEATliquor make sure the wait is fun though: when you’re outside they walk up and down with trays of samples so you can salivate over what’s in store for you. And when you’re waiting at the bar, well, there’s drinks to be had and a photo booth to be silly in.

WHAT WE ATE: My flatmates swore blind that ML’s chicken wings are the ‘best thing ever’, which was pretty encouraging. But I’m not really a fan of wings in general so I went for the Swiss mushroom burger (minus the bun, oh wheat I miss you!). Plus a side of chilli cheese fries to share. And 1 stolen wing – for a wing, it was tasty.

THE VERDICT: Holy bejeezus the food was good and definitely worth the wait. I’d eat those chilli cheese fries all over again. If I hadn’t been so stuffed the peanut butter ice cream dessert looked amazeballs.
Go there immediately.

THE PRICE: Mains start from £8, which seems v cheap, but once we added sides and a-few-too-many drinks and service you’re looking at roughly £20-25 per person. So it’s not budget eating but it’s certainly not extravagant.

The MEATliquor Twitter feed states you will ‘come hungry, leave drunk’. Mission accomplished 🙂

Location etc: 74 Welbeck St, W1G0BA, open 7 days from 12pm til varying late hours.  http://www.meatliquor.com/london/

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Peanut Slab’s big day out

Since the dawn of time (well, not really, but for quite a while) New Zealanders have found a way to recognise Waitangi Day in London. Someone, somewhere, decided a few years back that a London-based pub crawl around the Circle Line would be the most respectful method for expats to express their love for a wee island nation. Every year since, enthusiastic Kiwis have dressed up in costumes representing some aspect of the homeland before getting mightily pissed.

And somehow the London police not only tolerate this occasion – they look forward to it! As long as crawl-goers follow the unwritten rule of ‘don’t be a dick’ then the London police force allows us one day a year to drink cans of beer in public and wander merrily, dressed like lunatics. It’s worth noting at this point that Waitangi Day celebrations from within New Zealand are very different. I have never, ever gone on a Waitangi Day pub crawl in New Zealand and nor do I ever expect to. This is a London-only oddity.

This was my fourth year on the crawl and like other years, I dressed up and had a lot of fun. In my first year I was a member of the ‘Crazy Horses’ gang. Year two I wore a newspaper-covered boiler suit adorned with pictures of ‘Fush & Chups’. For the last two crawls my boyfriend and I have pooled our brainpower and creativity towards a hardcore-handmade-matching-costumes-approach: we were L&P cans for 2013 and Whittaker’s Peanut Slabs for 2014.

While the novelty of drinking a beer in public has has worn off over the years, the best part of the crawl is chatting to other insane Kiwis. A good costume is guaranteed to get ‘mad props’. We were the only Peanut Slabs I saw on the crawl so were pretty popular for photo-ops. The only downside was that we were also magnets for obnoxious drunk people. I don’t know what it is about wearing a giant cardboard box but I may as well have worn a sign saying ‘punch me really hard’ because that’s exactly what kept happening…Needless to say I started to get pretty annoyed and started telling people in a patronising fashion: “If you punch me I will not be nice to you OR pose for a photo with you, because you were rude. Yes I am serious. Go away.”

Rant over. For the most part people were fun and friendly.

So, I reckon we single-handedly boosted online orders of Whittaker’s chocolate this weekend…wonder what that’s worth to a hungry homesick Kiwi? 😉

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Tube-strike musings

There were tube strikes in London for two days of this week. I completely rely on the tube to get from my flat in West London to my office in King’s Cross, North London, so I knew it was going to get tricky.  I was prepared for that. And I’m well aware that coping with slightly-inconvenient-public-transport is definitely up there on the list of First World Problems, so I’m not after sympathy for what followed 😉

I’ve gotta acknowledge that it was a bit of a ball-ache for many people. But one upside of a longer commute is that you get extra headspace from all that standing around wanting to maim people waiting patiently. And I like me some extra headspace, because I can get all self-indulgently introspective a la Angela Chase.   

  1. Sometimes, your plan just sucks.  I attempted to use the London Overground (which was still running) on day one. And I couldn’t get onto a train despite heading to the station early: it was like a mosh pit. So I had to wait for a bus, along with ten million other people. And when I finally got on a bus, it took almost an hour for a journey that usually takes 20 minutes. Coulda been worse, coulda been better.
  2. Being real with yourself and your freaky little neuroses ain’t a bad thing. I work in the rail industry but I really, truly hate a crowded train. I get anxious and tense and I arrive at work a bit wrung out on days that my line’s been busier than usual. If it didn’t take so much longer I would bus from home to work. Oh how I love the London bus! The seating arrangement is designed for people like me who need a protective personal bubble. If you get a window seat it’s very rare that anyone’s going to get all up in your face, unlike the tube where it’s rare if that doesn’t happen. Anyhoo, I digress. On strike day I was actually quite relieved that I ended up having to bus for one leg of the journey, despite it being super-slow. I got a seat. I admired the view over Hyde Park and was able to ignore how packed the bus was. I realised I should have just gotten up extra early to catch the damn bus in the first place. 
  3. Sometimes the things you don’t plan are better. I hadn’t planned on the 4km walk from the bus stop on Bond Street to King’s Cross.  It was a beautiful morning and it was a really nice walk. And I was wearing flat boots! #win
  4. Exploring is fun. I’ve lived in London for 4 years and had never wandered the back streets of Fitzrovia. I liked the area. I saw some cute cafes. I want to go back and check them out. Once I’d realised I was already hella late I slowed down the pace and enjoy ed my morning walk. I noticed other Londoners moving around me in 2 modes: Sweaty Panicked Jog or the Laidback Stroll of someone who’s decided not to get stressed. Screw stress.
  5. A change in routine can be a good thing. I was prepared for day two of the strikes. I got up stupidly early and was at work by 8am. Funnily enough I had a really productive day at work and an even more productive evening working on a few projects at home. Probably because I got home earlier than usual and was feeling good about myself for having a productive day at work.

So that’s how I felt about the first wave of tube-strikes: they were inconvenient but I enjoyed the extra headspace and the change in routine.