Friday 16 June 2023
It’s just gone 06:00 and I’m up early because it’s 14°C and I was wide awake (in an I’d far rather be fast asleep because I’m tired kind of way). This is my last morning in Lewisham on this three-night trip and the first time I’ve sat in my favourite armchair by the open balcony door in the morning. This is the coolest spot in the flat at this time because it’s not in direct sun yet and there is always a slight breeze.
As usual, I have enjoyed being back here, though I say that ignoring the fact of the flat recording 31°C as the indoor temperature by 20:00 and not having much sleep (too hot, too many mosquitoes or other bitey insects stinging me and, frustratingly, fretting about the air conditioning unit). Yesterday, I gave myself some shopping errands (including my favourite Borodinsky bread from a stall in Borough Market) and went to visit my cousin. I was going to go to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition to see one of his paintings on display but wasn’t in the mood for a busy gallery on a hot day so decided to see him and his paintings in his home-studio and have a catch-up in-person rather than on the phone. Earlier, I had also had a long walk with my friend Duncan. I know I am lucky to have the opportunity to live somewhere quiet with no people around and also somewhere where everything is convenient and it’s easy to meet up with friends.
Duncan and I met in our small local park, where I found myself coveting some tree trunks, thinking how useful they’d be cut up into log tables (we have no outdoor tables). Such admiration of cut-up tree trunks has never happened to me before. We also, unlike the foxes our wildlife cameras have captured, saw some of the local fox families, which are not as scared of humans as the ones in Scotland, or indeed urban foxes in general should be.
However, this trip was primarily to help my mum back home from Scotland to Kent and I needed to complete my tax return, which, unusually for me, I did on Wednesday, my first full day here, rather than putting it off and having it hang over me for the rest of the week. I am good at deciding to do my tax return but not at the moment I think I could/should do it and then I waste weeks, usually months, with it hanging over me as something I hate doing but which I know I need to do.
A few other things I’ve noticed include the fact I definitely talk to myself more nowadays and that it’s more noticeable that I do it while in London where it’s busier and I am far more likely to be overhead and/or avoided. My packing from London on this trip is largely clothes and ingredients I am not able to find in Scottish Borders (eg less everyday Indian ingredients and the rotelle pasta I buy from an Italian deli in Lewisham). It is more noticeable than I probably expected how much lighter it is in the mornings and evenings in Scotland and how much more comfortable the temperature is in the shade and overnight further north. However, I am appreciating being able to walk around in London during the day without fear of midge-attack and I have worn open-toed shoes. I hate being bitten anywhere, obviously, but feet and ankles are places I particularly hate having itches, probably because shoes and socks can so easily rub the bites. In Scotland, my cunning plan has been to have as much of me covered as possible, including long sleeves. I may have to change this approach as it gets hotter over the coming months, potentially.
I have also, unsurprisingly, enjoyed having an easy water supply, but I am pleased with myself for definitely using less water than I usually would have because I am conscious of water usage more than ever before.
I also enjoyed shopping, so much easier (walking out to shops) and cheaper (£1-a-bowl in Lewisham market) and I could easily buy cassava (to make cassava chips which I absolutely love).
I’m heading home on an 18:30 train tonight, which I’m not expecting to be a comfortable journey; Friday night after work across London and on a train which goes from Euston to Glasgow ready for weekend trips. And in the midst of hot weather in a country with an infrastructure not designed for hot weather. With bags of clothes and shopping. I can barely wait.