Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Today is not admittedly all that interesting; we just went from Edinburgh to London. Can I end there? Nah, I’ve come this far.

The advantage of having a creepy Airbnb is that it is not actually all that sad to leave it. We do the usual packing up and checking under the bed (literal and metaphorical; I had already confirmed that no one was under the bed right when we arrived), catch a bus to another bus which takes us to the airport. Finally, we get a front seat on the top floor of a double decker bus! Too bad it’s just largely a view of the suburbs of Edinburgh. But there is at one point a large thistle sculpture. Bye, Scotland! I don’t want to leave you. But I have a feeling I’ll be back.

Edinburgh’s airport has that weird European layout where you have to walk through the duty-free labyrinth before you can enter the actual area with the gates, and you can’t go to your gate until the screen shows you where to go, but it’s fine because there’s a Pret. This is, what, our fourth Pret trip? Fifth? It’s just such a standby. I wonder how long I could eat Pret until I got tired of it. After our little lunch I go for a spin around the terminal. I’m wearing my new mushroom dungarees, obviously, which draw a lot of looks. Hard to miss me coming down the hallway now. 

The gate is announced, we get on board, and it’s a very smooth, quick, pleasant trip. At least, I think it is. I sleep almost the whole way. We land at Gatwick, then start the long and convoluted journey into the city. I hadn’t realized how much farther from the city center Gatwick was than Heathrow. First it’s a train, alighting at Farringdon, then the Hammersmith and City line to Ladbroke Grove. As we enter London, the Shard comes into view, and the other buildings of the City, and then the Tate, Blackfriars, and St. Paul’s. Ah, it feels a little like coming home.

By the time we get off the Tube, Mom’s not feeling super well. Mostly, she says she has a headache. This is not helped by the fact that this airbnb, once again, has several steep flights of stairs. I really didn’t do this on purpose. Not consciously, anyway. Despite it being a pleasant temperature on the verge of cool down on the street, once we get up to the top of the building it’s absolutely sweltering. The windows barely open, and the fan does next to nothing. At least there’s a refrigerator. After a little rest we go to Tesco for some snacks and cold drink, then take a walk around the neighborhood. 

There’s not much to see up here. We’re near Notting Hill and North Kensington, which appears to be largely residential, calm and placid, a weekday evening in a non-touristy area. It’s kind of pleasant. We pick a street and follow it until it hits a dead end. The houses are so cute, townhouse style, with flowers spilling over low walls in front of them. Some have very nice looking sitting rooms, some have very nice tile work.

I become conscious that I’m looking for something to write about as I walk. How can I play up the hydrangeas and the colorful primary school, and the building in the distance that reads Imperial College London? I feel this urgent need to have every day’s entry full of interesting, deep things. Some days just aren’t like that though. Some days, you just go for a walk in a neighborhood and don’t find anything out of the ordinary, and that’s okay. The sky is beautiful this evening, and it’s not raining, and for now I’m in a country and a city that I love, and that’s enough.

Back to the hot airbnb. I drink my cold fizzy wine and fall asleep messing around on the internet, not writing like I planned. Sometimes it do be like that.