linainuk

Been Busy…

Well, I have! It’s been the end of summer (what summer) and in the same way as in the month of December, it’s always contained a lot of “obligations” (parties..) and it would be rude of me not to respect traditions probably older than mankind itself! It really would.
But hey, at least I’m pleased to inform you that my hobby of excessive/obsessive walking slowly has started to spread. People who’s been whining and whinging about the mere thought of it before has now been seen (and heard of) taking unnecessary strolls after visiting their local corner shop for a newspaper, walking home instead of taking the tube and some has even been marching by the canal all the way from Bethnal Green to Little Venice! I was going to meet Scout 1 and Scout 2 there and only had to walk 1/6th of what they had to cover, but still ended up being over 1 hour late! It was the second day of the (Notting Hill) Carnival and I had severely miscalculated the amounts of people around. Apparently some new record was set with 2 million people visiting Notting Hill on Monday (and one guy shot!). Notting Hill is not that big. It took me over 1 hour and an argument with a police officer to walk 100 meters. So escaping for a few hours to Little Venice was like a dream come true. Trust me if you don’t live in Notting Hill, you just won’t understand. This year we were lucky, since the party didn’t start until around 10 am. Other years it’s been 8. Both days. Its not just your bed that’s hopping, but the whole house is shaking to the music. You need a few hours away not to go crazy…

On my way back, me and Nicola were texting, arranging to meet up back in Ladbroke Grove. But before we managed to agree on any specific spot the phones were jammed. And I mean ALL phones! Every person in the whole area was suddenly seen shouting, swearing, desperately shaking their mobiles (because that would help. Yes.) And this happens every year. On the second day, roughly around the same time. Still everybody is equally chocked and angry beyond belief. Every year. Including me! Why? (Well, it’s probably a way to make people leave quicker…it’s not rocket science.) But guinea pigs learn faster!
I managed to run into my friends Jef and Anna within the time span of 10 minutes! (I guess the world is not that big after all. Or at least not Notting Hill.) But gave up before I even tried to find Nicola, because the rule of logic is that if you’re trying to haphazardly find someone – it just will not happen! (Although on the other hand, if you’re trying to AVOID someone the exact opposite rule applies – they will find you!) I’m fairly sure these rules are older than mankind as well…

I’ve felt another obsession slowly growing lately as well. I think it started with a dream (it normally does) and then that I coincidentally started to hear about it everywhere (that’s pretty much standard procedure as well). There has been a lot of strange coincidences going on in my life lately - impossible ones even! But that’s a totally different story. Let’s just narrow it down to that I believe these are sometimes there as some sort of clues to be followed.
This time I was focusing on the Thames Barrier! One day a couple of months ago I was going east and had a few hours to spare. Since I had been thinking about this place for days I decided to pop around quickly to have a look. Easy. What could go wrong?
Only that I couldn’t find it! I had thought it was located just by the Millennium Dome! It isn’t!
I even climbed the Greenwich hill to try to spot it. But still couldn’t see it! I was defeated and had to give up.
Last week Sara came to visit! :) We used to live together in Paris and have stayed in contact ever since. She now lives in Leeds, but has been down to London quite a lot, so she can’t exactly be called a “tourist”. But even so, I had to come up with something “touristy” to do with her. Something of treat. Something she would really appreciate… A lot of people tried to come up with suggestions, like the theatre or a daytrip. But then I accidentally saw something on the internet about – the Thames Barrier! And that changed absolutely everything! Apparently it’s the 8th wonder of the world!!! Can you believe it? What can possibly be more fun, more interesting to see and visit than the 8th wonder of the world! Yes, surely she was going to love this! Still I avoided letting her know what we were up to until the last minute in case she wouldn’t see it my way (some people just don’t understand what’s good for them…I mean this was on equal footing with the pyramids! That’s more than you can say about the London Eye!)

This time I was properly prepared. I had (vaguely) seen the Barrier in the picture of the Thames in the beginning of East Enders. I knew exactly where I stood! How could I possibly go wrong this time?
Turns out that the introduction picture in East Enders is not to scale! (But that sort of should have been expected, considering the river isn’t even floating the right way! Surely rivers start at the source and end up in the sea, right? Right? So why is the BBC making it look as if it’s the other way around?)
Sara really didn’t look convinced about walking for several miles, considering we had a party to go to in the other edge of the town a couple of hours later. And we needed to get home to shower and change first. But we did manage to catch a glimpse of some “shark looking thingies” in the far distance.

That means I’ve now failed to get to this place – twice! How ridiculous is that?!?

A couple of days later I was talking to Joanna about it. She didn’t really know what I was on about, at least not after describing them as “sharks”. She doesn’t think they look like sharks! It’s quite obvious that they do. Not the fin, but the nose! She thinks they look the like Sidney Opera house! SIDNEY OPERA HOUSE?
Come on! Personally, I think there’s more of a similarity between the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and The Sidney Opera house. But I still haven’t managed to get any support for this idea!

But surely…SURELY this…