Over the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of hosting friends visiting from abroad and introducing them to the sights, sounds, and smells of London.
The gleaming clockface of the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), the Church organ playing some stonking classics ('Thine be the Glory'), the smell of a steaming Sunday roast coming out of the oven.
And also:
The grey overcast skies and pathetic drizzle, the deafening screeches of the Jubilee Line, and the reassuring warmth of a cup of tea.
Incidentally, a friend from the States staying with us this week found herself receiving instruction on how to make a proper cup of tea. ”You have to pour it when the water is freshly boiled, and we use kettles, not microwaves in this country!”, my mother exclaimed, pouring her murky and tepid attempt straight down the sink.
I am convinced that there is nobody who loves their tea (and teacups and teapots for that matter) more than a Filipino mother, but that’s a post for another day.
My current schedule means that time with visiting friends has been squeezed between commuting from one Zone 5 London suburb to another as I complete my journalism course, and into weekends which turn into a whistle-stop tour of London.
Having friends tag along the mundanities of my day-to-day existence makes for a real life version of those “A Day in the Life of” videos which pop up all over social media, where people become weirdly fascinated in the very average details of a stranger’s routine existence.
It has however also been a welcome cause for some reflection on life in the Capital.
After a fair while spent living away from London myself, I’ve enjoyed rediscovering favourite nooks and crannies of the city as I act as a tourguide.
I’ve pointed out meaningful spots as we’ve stumbled across them; the Church where I read as a keen Year Seven at our school’s Carol Service, or the pavement where my parents once accidentally left me amidst the crowds during the St Patrick’s Day Parade. Thankfully a cousin staying with us in London at the time realised I was missing just in time; another great reason to have visitors.
And it’s been delightful discovering places and areas I hadn’t visited before. I spent a wonderful few hours marvelling at the Early Renaissance Collection at the Courtauld Gallery last month, for instance.
I’ve also spent a considerable amount of time south of the river for a change. I’ve even ventured to Clapham. There, you can find millennials aplenty, taking a stroll around Clapham Common after brunch at one of the up-market culinary establishments. They’re dressed with the same energy as if it were Central Park in NYC, except dare I say the Common is just a very flat and very large patch of grass.
On the other hand, having foreign friends peer over your shoulder and make observations as you try to Keep Calm and Carry On has, for want of a better word, also shown to me just how peculiar and barmy the British life can appear.
Indeed, as the first of the German-speaking friends to visit remarked, “Die Engländer sind doch anders” - ”British people are indeed rather different”.
A passing comment, but one which sent my valiant attempts to restore EU-British relations post-Brexit straight into the Thames.
Items which friends have encountered for the first time during their stay in London so far include (and obviously not all in one go): mushy peas, Yorkshire puddings, tartare sauce, hot cross buns, tea cakes, and marzipan disciples sitting atop a leftover piece of simnel cake.
I’ve also been asked why the congregation joins in the reading of the Passion at Church (apparently German-speaking Catholics do not shout ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!'), why the puffer jacket is so ubiquitous, and why it would appear that British men in their early 20’s all appear to have the same haircut and dress-sense.
Still looking for an answer to that last one.
And they’re not the only puzzled ones either. Returning after six months abroad I’ve also found myself noticing aspects of British culture which didn’t seem to bother me before.
Take vaping, for instance. Perhaps it was my time spent surrounded by the salad-eating athleisure-wearing New York Gen-Z, but since when was inhaling addictive strawberry candyfloss flavoured vape suddenly a requirement for social situations? (see this article on the vaping endemic: How vaping took over UK schools, with children as young as 10 using e-cigarettes (inews.co.uk))
On another note, perhaps related to the fact that I missed Her Majesty’s passing and the phenomenon of The Queue, I am becoming increasingly weirded out by the Coronation and all the accompanying pomp and glory.
I’ve been particularly bothered this week about the Pope giving Charles some relics of the True Cross for a processional silver cross. It seems a bit on the extreme side to gift relics of the Cross on which the Church proclaims God Incarnate died for the salvation of mankind, when a tea-towel would do just fine. Or if Papa Francesco really wanted to push the boat out on his Coronation merch, an Emma Bridgewater mug would have done the job.
And don’t even get me started on Coronation Quiche. Spinach, broad bean, and tarragon, anyone?
I didn’t think the day would come when I’d resort to writing about the London life, and I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t clicked on this post and made it this far either. Yet moving back home and finding my feet again as an adult in the city where I grew up seems to have done just the trick.
There’s something almost paradoxical about the fact that it has taken the visits of friends whom I’ve met on my adventures escaping from London, to remind me of the Capital’s quirks, eccentricities, and whether we like it or not, its alluring buzz.
The Postcards from Vienna are stuck on the wall, the revision flashcards from Cambridge jettisoned into the recycling pile long ago, and the donuts of New York have, well, been scoffed down.
Welcome (back) to the London life.