A Tale of Two Cities - The Bulldog Leg

Got back to Toronto last night after a two week holiday, split as fairly as I could between UK and Spain given it was my family in Spain to whom I owed a real visit. Yet - like a love affair - I was unable to let the opportunity to visit London pass. Stealing an illicit 3 days in London I wasted no time on foreplay.

Minutes after checking into the Holiday Inn, Camden Lock- despite 10 hours of travel and with jet lag pulling ever more forcefully at my eye lids; tempted as I was to drop like a rock onto the bed, scissor kick the cramp out of my body and surrender consciousness to the cool fresh white linen, I showered the smell of airline off and took my ragged body onto the familiar grey slabs of London's pavements - gloriously bathed in the warm sunlight of a balmy late summer's day.

Camden having been the urban setting for much of my teenage life, provided the stimulus my haggard mind needed (and so much more) with memories stepping out from every corner ranging from the real to the ethereal.


Meandering past The Electric Ballroom, I remembered countless Indie/rock nights and 3am kebabs. Less salubrious were the thoughts that came to me as I browsed the old book and antique stalls of The Stables and Courtyard areas of this vast unique market. Eventually I twisted my way through the back streets of Chalk Farm up Primrose Hill to take the best seat in the house.




Medicine for the soul



There isn't a part of London that doesn't hold an important significance for me. I miss it terribly but I need to be careful not to let nostalgia cloud my mind. It was for a reason I left. That reason would so easily creep back if a return were not to be managed properly. Perhaps this is the way it has to be. Like a ferociously passionate relationship between two people who are just too similar - the only way to be friends is to stay apart. Perhaps that is what London has to be for now - until I can reconcile my wants with my needs and become better at being 'me'. I owe it to myself and all those around me who have ever invested time in 'me'.



I didn't squander the little time I had in town on being maudlin however much I obviously enjoy this state of mind. I met up with all my friends and this time they did see me wave. I satiated my need for culture by visiting the Tate Britain and the Hayward Gallery whilst savouring both the conversation and the wine. I've given up alcohol as of yesterday. It's part of the requisites for achieving this so-called 'life less ordinary'. I have to practice what I'm about to preach.


The next day, we went in for the kill and spent the day by the Thames and all the gems that area has to offer and as the time to say farewell both to the friends and the city I love and miss so much approached, with the pitiless step of a Greek Tragedy, I decided to do that most un-British of all things and openly cry. To my astonishment, my friends cried too.


I felt indescribably better for a person who wanted to do nothing but stay and carry on like I'd never left but I had other responsibilities - this time to the family. And so the Bullfight leg of the trip began: Madrid.