Due to the fact that Hus and I are both given to enthusiastic but often ill-advised ideas and daydreams about the next great project/travelling plan/life change/labrador puppy purchase, we have a longstanding agreement that every month or so, we are each allowed to 'veto' one such idea that our beloved may put on the table. We even talked about getting a rubber stamp made that says 'VETO' in big red letters that the other person can use to hammer the refusal home. Hus regularly uses his veto vote on my adventure sports-themed ideas, and mine are often used to limit the amount of audio/production equipment that seems to breed in our cellar.
While living in Manchester in 2008-2010, I noticed that Hus started drip-feeding an idea involving a(nother) major move...this time to London. Let me tell you, the veto card was played quick as a flash. We had just made a series of incredibly huge, incredibly uprooting life changes - marriage, 3 months of backpacking around South America, quitting our jobs, leaving New York and all our friends there, starting both a Masters and demanding jobs in an unfamiliar northern city. It's an understatement to say that all those changes took a while to adjust to, and I felt really fragile and apprehensive at the thought of any more change. No more. Especially not London. VETO. I think the words 'over my cold dead body' might have been used to respond to the suggestion of London when it was first brought up.
Thankfully my patient husband, who by this point was becoming quite accustomed to my hyperbolic effusions, is someone who both knows me well and who knows how to play the long game. So he bided his time. We muddled through our time in Manchester; the cloud of confused adjustment slowly lifted, and a few good friends of ours moved to London, drawing our gaze down to the south. And then, somehow, Hus quietly got a great job offer there, while I found an ad for my dream job that, despite being in London, I just couldn't resist the opportunity of. Somehow, the veto was forgotten.
So it came to pass that around this time three years ago, on the same day that I handed in my dissertation and the keys to our flat, I hopped on a train south to join Hus in what is now home, and one of my favourite cities in the whole world. The past three years have been so incredibly rich with all kinds of blessings, I don't even know where to begin to summarise it all. It felt like London welcomed us with open arms, and it still embracing us now. The first thing I noticed: it's SUNNIER here. It really is, trust me. And it's good for the soul. I got into cycling, and (to my horror, quite frankly) turned into one of those lycra-clad speedster commuters...I love it. I have explored so many corners of the city by bike, and it always beckons me to explore more. The years here have seen us enjoy London's amazing public parks and spaces, from windswept walks over Hampstead Heath and chilly dips in the bathing ponds there, to strolls along the South Bank where all of city life bubbles away. Winter skating outside the beautiful Natural History Museum, rooftop cocktails, summers jam-packed with free outdoor theatre, music, and ale festivals. Protests, rallies, street parties, parades, marathons, Royal weddings, Jubilee celebrations. Palaces, WWII bunkers, ancient pubs, leafy squares with cobbled streets, the Shard. The Olympics and Paralympics, which brought the city together like never before. Jobs that challenge us and that we love. Finding our own little corner of the city, with friends mere minutes away, in a small little flat that is a haven and a home.
Hus jokes that he should make his own stamp that reads 'I TOLD YOU SO'. It's true; he so often intuits what I will connect with before I do. Luckily, I didn't stand my ground with the London 'veto'; here's to many more years in this great, bustling, bonkers, beautiful city I now call home.
No comments:
Post a Comment