#godsaveourgraciousbridget

Who knew that something I’d vehemently resisted for so very long could ultimately render me so happy? And I’m not talking about hot wax hair removal or duckfat poached potatoes.

Seven months ago, my life, as I knew it, ended. Unfortunate things happened to me and I’m not accustomed to things happening to me. I generally make unfortunate things happen to other people. I’m also not accustomed to being quiet about stuff either, preferring, in all matters related to my lives personal and professional, to scream it from the rooftops… or write about it and publish it on a searchable, public blog. But anyway, shit happens, it happened to me, I wasn’t sure I’d see it through to the other side.

Now, here we are, a little over half a year later and I am as happy as a large-eyed, large-thighed, single woman of a certain age could expect to be… maybe even a little more. #yesreally

I never wanted to live in London. I never wanted to admit defeat, to admit that Paris had won and I had lost. I never wanted to become just another pasty Australian backpacker who never went home, who was still pretending to be a free and easy, unattached, leather-faced, drunk roaming the continent in Thai-fisherman pants and sharing a studio in Earl’s Court with 7 other people. I wanted to be special, I wanted to be unique, and I very much liked being one of only a handful of Australians in Paris; I wanted it to stay that way.

But, Fassbender is still oblivious to my existence, gut-wrenching proof, and a painful, daily reminder that you don’t always get what you want. #justoncewouldbeheaven So here I am in London Town, and I bloody love it.

There is a lot to hate about London. Clutching your lower stomach in agony, legs crossed and teeth clenched as you queue for a bladder-bursting pee, the tube, which is, to all intents and purposes, the seventh circle of human-crushing hell and the rain, which isn’t so much rain as it is moisture hanging between the sky and the earth, held in perfect, gravity-defying suspension, until I need to walk somewhere on the day I’ve forgotten my brolly.

The queues, the tube, the rain, counterbalanced with everything that is joyful about living in London means that getting a little wet, a little hot or a little urinary tract infection is a small price to pay for the tidal rhythms of the Thames humming me to sleep in the evening.

After 7 years suffocating in stapled, photocopied, registered posted, bureaucratic France, the first thing that revolutionised my existence, was that in London, everything is so bloody easy. I signed up for electricity, water, council tax, Sky, TV license and home insurance online, in a grand total of 60 minutes. No letters were written, no passport copies were required, and no registered posting of anything at all, just my name, my bank details and hey presto, every month they take my money. The capacity to organise one’s personal administration without ever having to interact with another human soul cannot be underestimated or underappreciated. Most especially given that persons working in such establishments are generally unhelpful, unfriendly and unqualified to do much more than open envelopes and stamp. #computersaysno

After I’d paid all the bills (she does indeed work hard for the money), it was time to spend some serious cash. It was time to go shopping; it was time to hand over the credit card… without ever having to leave the house. In London, one can order pretty much anything one desires and some-other-one will bring it to your house, avoiding the inconvenience of wasting hours in confined, un-airconditioned spaces filled with oozing children and troupes of meandering, disaffected, un-parented youths. I furnished my house in an hour, no yellow caddies, no big blue bags and no meatballs to distract me. Even so, most life-altering on the retail front are the establishments owned and operated by JLP.

The John Lewis Partnership is a network of magical places where an olive-green aproned or shirted person improves your world, like a unicorn, or gastric-banding, or Fassbender in Shame. A person whose sole purpose for being is to make your life happier. A person who knows the specifics of the products they are selling, a person who doesn’t grunt a direction, but physically accompanies you to the place you need to be. They are magical beings with a special talent for lightening the wallets of all those who unwittingly approach. Which is why I’ve taken to shopping at John Lewis and Waitrose online. #homedeliveredpinotgrigio

When not divesting one’s income, one can walk, one can promenade, and one can parade. The city is actually designed for people to be able to get from one place to another place on foot. There are parks where one can lie on the grass and admire (or critique) passersby. There are footpaths that allow for more than Two Gossiping Parisiennes to walk abreast. There are pedestrian crossings and painted warnings on the road reminding you to look left or look right before you jaywalk. Cars, cycles, cabs, caddies and double-decker buses coexist in a space largely free of ear-splitting, honking klaxons. I am well aware that there is a simmering, mutual disrespect for everyone on the road, but at least it’s quiet. I don’t miss the loud, Latin cacophony of Paris, where crossing, even at a light, is a dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. #guessthesong

I do miss my friends in Paris, I miss them almost as much as I miss Sapphire, Smack and Squeal back in Sydney. Thankfully, I’ve been warmheartedly welcomed by other London friends. Some I knew from before, others I’ve become reacquainted with and one, I actually went to school with! #BMGS #thatlongago

There are the fruits, a Banana Bunch led by Tartan Tom who helped me build my Swedish bed. The Tequila Sister, who takes time out from her very posh, White Company life in Berkshire to drink wine with me in the grotty underbelly of St Giles. Never fear, she brings anti-bacterial handwash with her. Zorba the Greek, a foodie and a father (and a Cypriot, not a Greek) takes time away from his photogenic family to listen to me moan about the world. And finally The Critique, my new theatre buddy, someone I knew, but not really, who may just be the only other person in Christendom who loves shows and bonnets and Cumberbatch as much as I do.

Such is my magnetic pull that even New Girl, seemingly unable to face life in Paris without me, actually moved to London. She’s a role model to us all, giving up cohabitation with a very delicious Frenchman to advance her career…and sit with me while I drink.

But the revelation, the one I’d never expected and the one that makes me smile the most, is The AusHoles.

The AusHoles, a bawdy antipodal trio made up of #bridgetbythebridge, feisty woman of wicked tongue, Sunshine, a dancing and singing man with whom I once brewed very weak American coffee and The SexGineer*, a man descended from the heights of the Blue Mountains, the only person who shared a classroom with me in high school and who is, after 20 years adrift, a part of my life today.

Individually, we are three professionals doing our very best to make it (or fake it), in this very big city. We are three who share a heritage under a Sydney sun. We are three who didn’t arrive in our twenties with a backpack to pull beers in Clapham, we are three who flew here on purpose, to create a life and to discover a world beyond the bleach and the beach. That alone, that single minded ambition, that desire to be different, that is what makes us special.

We also talk about sex and drink way too much wine; but we’re still special. #TheAusholes #LondonIloveyou

Even my bridge is happy!

*Very much like a Sex God, only much better at helping you drive your technology

Comments

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You're determined to give up my "glamorous gay Parisian life-style" and re-own my heritage. Stop, there's no way that there are footpaths that allow more than Two Gossiping Parisiennes to walk abreast!

Posted by: Craig Thomas | 07/12/2014 at 11:48 PM