Suddenly, the question. ‘What are the plans for tonight?’. Ruling out the option of cooking something, we decided to see which of the restaurants around home would appeal us the most. Burger at The Flask? No. Indian in Crouch End? No. Pizza? BORING, no. Thai in Stroud Green? Turkish in Angel? No. Remembering a conversation with M. the night before, I said I would love to go to Dim T. My flatmate beamed and screamed she remembered there was one in Highgate. Moments of anticipation and turmoil while the page of the website loads and THERE IT IS, Highgate. Evening sorted. ‘Can you call them to book?’ ‘Why you never call?’ ‘I don’t like talking’ ‘Oh really? It didn’t seem so last night…’ ‘Umpf’. Booked. At 9, we’re prancing up Highgate Hill to reach our beloved destination.

Now, eating out (or just eating in general) is a sacred ritual for Italians, as you might know. It is the equivalent to drinking for the British. It is close to unconceivable to go out for a meal and have less than 3 courses, consumed while repeatedly appreciating the quality of the food. It is simply not socially acceptable to go out for a meal and, at the end, feel like you could easily put something else in your stomach. NO. You have to eat until you feel your stomach is about to get out of your body and slap you. Neither me or my flatmate stick to this ritual every day, of course, but on weekends we believe it is our duty as Italian citizens abroad to maintain habits and traditions of our motherland.

We arrive to Dim T and it’s – of course – much smaller than the one in London Bridge. We sit down and while we’re looking at the menu, choosing approximately 20 dim sum each while enthusiastically reading the ingredients and gesticulating, a lovely English couple sits at the table next to us. And here, ladies and gentlemen, begins a meal that we shall rename The Clash of the Cultures. In a triumph of squeaks of delight, our pile of dim sum arrive, soon followed by our main course (noodles). While we are jumping on our food like vultures on their preys, the couple’s meal arrives. It is with a mix of shock and self-consciousness that we notice they have one dim sum to share (there are 3 in each box) and one main to share. With a look of almost sheer horror my flatmate leans toward me and asks me if they are sharing one dim sum. I reply yes, so it would seem. We look at the small box on their table. We look at what resembles the Pisa Tower on our table. Our minds simply cannot comprehend. I also look at the gracefulness both our table neighbours show towards the food, then I look at my flatmate eating noodles displaying chopstick skills I’ll never have, taking onions out of the bowl with a fork and avidly drinking her lychee tea. Mine is a mix of concern and admiration. Despite our sizes, she is unquestionably the champion who could eat amounts of food you mortals wouldn’t even bear the sight of. Looking at the girl at the table next to us, she launches herself in a heated debate on whether we tend to eat less when we go on a date or not. I reply yes, because I’m normally too nervous to or (ah, the romanticism!) too lost in the other person, and she says she used to be intimidated and usually tried to control herself, but doesn’t anymore. I point out that it would be simply impossible considering her current boyfriend appetite, which shocked even a woman used to regularly go out for dinner with 5 greedy Italian men like me. With the background of this couple eating less than each of us had eaten, we finish our meal and express full satisfaction by rubbing our tummies and telling the waiter (Italian) it was all wonderful. He is a small Northern Italian, who was evidently equally shocked to see our Southern Italian selves showing so much appreciation towards food. We didn’t want a dessert, but somehow we felt the meal would have been incomplete without. So we decided to share a Bento Box, which is – believe me – sex in a box.

With something like that at hand, no man could ever equate the level of physical, almost sexual satisfaction a woman can reach – and women, if you disagree you know you’re lying. That was (quite rightfully) the climax. While we were in the middle of the intercourse eating the brownie, the couple left. Indignated, my flatmate looked at them, then at me and said ‘what sort of meal is this!’. You see, she’s much more Italian than me, and it amuses me how, after 4 years in this country, she doesn’t seem to get used to the fact British don’t worship food as much as we do. They consume their meals quietly, with moderation, and submissively – pretty much like anything else they do, in fact. Once finished the orgasmic brownie, we grin with satisfaction. And here comes the gem: when the waiter comes to get my card and ask how it was, my flatmate shows the best of her very hidden femininity saying (to a Northern Italian guy, may I remind you this) with a Roman accent ‘We ate everything you had in the restaurant, HAHA!’ (literally: ‘Ci siamo magnate tutto quello che c’era ner ristorante, HAHA’). I freeze for a second and, looking at the guy’s face, I want the ground to open up and swallow me.

Rolling like balls, we start walking down the hill to Hornsey Lane, and we come up with a very good idea. In London you find plenty of ads for cabs taking you home if you’re too drunk. In Italy, they should offer another type of service, more suitable for the country’s priority: a crane that can comfortably take you home, seated or on a litter, after you had a meal out. Once again, a fine example of where two countries’ different priorities lie.

Social Interactions With British Men – A Case Study

A first, fundamental premise is that British people are not, as it is widely believed, cold individuals. They have a peculiar way of communicating and showing emotions which, once you get to know them better, is crystal clear and easy to interpret. The essential points are:

a. When half of the world’s population (maybe excluding hardcore buddhists) would have screamed, swore, strangled passer-bys, true British maintain complete control of themselves. To the untrained eye, it would seem they do not express any kind of emotional reaction whatsoever. After years in this country, I can now say they do in fact react to external events. Only in its extreme intensity, the particular emotion can be measured by a slight yet clear movement of the eyebrows, often accompanied by a rapid movement of the eyes. Slight twitching of eyebrow? Extreme anger. Eyebrows moving slightly closer to each other? Extreme perplexity. Eyebrows moving downwards and puppy eyes? Extreme sadness. And so forth.
b. Apologise. Always. Hit someone with a broom randomly while you’re walking on a semi-deserted street, be sure that person will say ‘sorry’ to you. British social life is a triumph of apologies, followed by an abundance of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
c. Do NOT, for whatever reason, touch another person. Touching is not permitted. You can’t invade someone else’s personal space – if you do, go to point b.
d. Communication is clear and concise. Don’t say in 10 words what you could say in one (or as in point a)

Now, it is scientifically proved men are emotionally retarded. They don’t know what display of emotions is, let alone the ability of articulating them into a coherent sentence. Where a woman expresses a concept in a deeply articulated speech, a man would reply with either 2 words or a groan. You can spend an hour of your life writing the most beautifully written email, the size of an A4 page, to a man, and you will probably get a line in reply, often after 10 days after you sent the email. Examples could go on, and on.

Given all the above, can you, for a tiny second, imagine what it is like for an Italian woman to interact with British men? It is a slow, painful agony where you are constantly torn between the irrepressible instinct to grab them by their shoulder and shake them (possibly screaming) and the desire to pinch their cheeks and go ‘awwwh’ at them, often wanting to give them a hug (which, by the way, could scar them for life).

I have learnt several things about British men. Interestingly, contrary to Italian men, their lives don’t seem to revolve around food and vagina. In case you didn’t know, food and vagina are the on top of the scale of values and life motivators for an Italian man. For British men, beer probably works as food does for Italians. I’m not sure vagina occupies the same central place it does for Italian men, but if it does, they’re probably better at hiding it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they managed to hide a ‘I want to shag you right here right now like a mouflon in heat’ behind a ‘so, what are you doing in London?’ (Italians can’t hide it at all, for the record). British men don’t scream, gesticulate, kiss on the cheek, grab each others balls and hug repeatedly when they meet up. They pat each other’s shoulders, slightly but firmly, in most extreme cases addressing each other with a ‘hey mate’. If a beautiful woman passes before their eyes, they don’t turn their heads until they fall off their shoulders, don’t whistle or clap. They just move the eyes, or eyebrows – which is, by the way, the general reaction to pretty much everything. British men would make hermetic poetry sound unnecessary verbose. If the subject is themselves, then be sure that mute signs would be more eloquent. The list could go on, but I have decided that the best way to describe this long and tortuous journey of mine into the Wonderful World of British Men’s Social Behaviour is to provide examples of some of the specimen I have found along my way over the years. The idea of excluding some of them, as well as all the random strangers I bump into on a daily basis who bless me with their Britishness, is hard and make my heart bleed, but alas, this is only meant to be a relatively short essay on the subject. I do plan to write a more compelling work later in my life.

I would like to start off with the first British man I’ve ever interacted with ever – my room neighbour during my first holiday in London. We were all living in student accomodations during our summer courses, he was a student at that university while I was just there for a couple of weeks studying English. There was the first time I experienced flirting (and kissing) English-style. For the first time in my life I didn’t have someone introducing himself to me, starting showering me with compliments, putting an arm around my shoulders and in approximately 3 and a half hours sticking his tongue down my throat. There I had a guy who didn’t even physically touched me for a week. And who asked me if he could give me a kiss with the same tone and facial expression you would say ‘what is your opinion on the excessive amount of rain fallen over the past 2 weeks?’. A man who, when I tried to hold his hand in public, looked at me as if I had just tore his trousers off and grabbed his penis in front of a 1500-people audience. A man I probably made cry when I told him I really, really liked him. My young self spent a considerable amount of time believing he didn’t really like me. Ah, the innocence of youth.

Another man that definitely needs to be mentioned is a man who, after having lived in Italy for years, maintained his Britishness in an almost moving way. The man who taught me what sarcasm is. And sarcastic remarks are the closest you’ll ever get to what a British man thinks. Which in his case, with the sole aforementioned movement of the eyebrows, was ‘You Italians are drama queens and I, subject of the Queen, laugh at your face’.

How could not mention gay British men? The amazingness of the delicacy of English language combined to the poetically British hermetism. Someone, once, in seeing me yawning and collapsing on my keyboard: ‘Are you alright, petal?’. Petal. Petal. I had tears of joy in my eyes. Men who combine the amazingness of questions like ‘do you moisturise?’ with the unmissable ‘have a cup of tea’ when you are about to pull your hair for stress.

But please, allow me to spend the last paragraph on the absolute, unquestionable winner of my personal chart so far who, like the others mentioned above, shall remain unnamed. The essence of Britishness made man. A man who would physically run to avoid a hug. A man who would reply to an email after 21 days, when you have long forgotten about it, as if you had just finished the conversation the night before. A man able to express anger, sadness, disappointment, amusement, interest and even affection with JUST. ONE. EXPRESSION. I never thought someone could master the art of eyebrows communication to perfection. A man I will always remember for the best attempt at starting a conversation ever: I was pouring my drink, he appeared from nowhere saying ‘hi Silvia, I…see…you’re holding a Fanta’. I was so touched I would have given him a hug, if this couldn’t have potentially caused him a trauma that would have kept him awake at night in tears. A man who brings the ‘don’t touch me’ aura to the next level, and I can clearly see terror in his eyes every time I do touch him (because alas, sometimes I touch people without even realising). A man who once replied to a text with just an exclamation mark, putting hermetic poets of the 20th century to shame. And I could write a book on the times I thought ‘this man is the quintessence of Britishness’, but I’ll stop it there.

Conclusion: British male specimen are weird creatures who never fail to amuse me. I feel so blessed to live in this country.

The statement
British guys seem to enjoy going around with unnecessarily big umbrellas.

Discussion
I have noticed a singular adversion for reasonably small and practical umbrellas in male specimen in this city. The tendency seems to be either not carrying umbrellas at all (it’s not raining, it is merely a mental projection of your most subconscious prejudice about England) or carrying beach-sized umbrellas I associate with my granpa when he used to bring me a sandwich every morning before going to school. Now, I have tried giving myself explanations for this, including a physics-based reasoning according to which a small umbrella, if the guy in question is very tall, might just help him to cover his head. But other than this only explanation, I remain in the dark. Is it megalomania? Is it an deeply rooted, socially shared belief that small umbrellas are just for girls because they’re pretty? Is it another manifestation of size anxities that would make Lacan and his theory of the Phallus giggle in a corner?

So far, my question remains unanswered.

To be honest, Britain’s relationship with food still puzzles me. I come from a country that has made food a matter of pride and, to all intents and purposes, a philosophy of life. A religion. As we were discussing on New Year’s Eve, food must be second on the scale of Great Life Values for an Italian (please don’t ask me what the first is). It is one of life’s greatest joys and the social activity par exellence, as only pubs and drinks can be to the British. Us Italians eat, and eat a lot, we like it and we’re not free from obesity issues that plague most Western societies. Yet, I feel it’s a matter of quantity rather than quality which isn’t, at least as far as I can see, the case in this country. Having a climate that allows you to have an infinite range of fresh fruit and vegetables all year certainly makes things easier, but I didn’t even know things like ceasar dressing and bacon crisps existed before I came to England. The amount of sauces, processed food, butter and fizzy drinks this nation consumes is, to my Italian eyes, shocking. Which doesn’t mean I’ve been spared since I moved here, quite the opposite, hence my joining the fray in the diet resolution.

After too much self-indulgence of months of unemployment, being forced to eat out and in a hurry every day for over a month was the finishing stroke for me. It would have been so even if I had been in Italy, but eating out in England without becoming a whale in a week is virtually impossible. Let’s start with the easiest – sandwiches. Getting a normal sandwich in this country is impossible. My concept of sandwich is bread and something, not bread and everything. You will never, ever find a fucking sandwich that has ONLY bread and ham. Or if it has, be sure that it has mayonnaise in it. I will not mention things like chicken, bacon and eggs, and whatever else. Second, salads: salad, in my experience, had always been actual salad – say, iceberg lettuce/rocket/tomatoes/carrots/fennels/celery/sweetcorn if you wanted to be creative. Here ‘salad’ could be anything. A bowl of pasta with chicken, mustard, mayonnaise and herbs is called ‘salad’. The closest I’ve ever found to my concept of salad is M&S’s egg salad, with an egg, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and rocket. THANK GOD they have the decency to keep dressing in a separate plastic bag. And then again, my idea of dressing is olive oil and salt. End of. If I feel adventurous, white wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar. Whatever they give you when you ask for Italian dressing at restaurants, it is not, BY ALL MEANS, Italian. What else on the list, crisps. Crisps in Italy are what you eat at children’s birthday parties and unless things have changed drastically over the past 2 years, you will hardly see someone eating crisps on a bus, or buying massive multi-packs unless, as I said, there’s a big party coming up. More, biscuits. Ah, British biscuits, how much I love thee, but how is it possible that pretty much any single biscuit has an entire pack of butter in it? These are the examples I can think of at the moment, but what I’ve always felt as a huge difference between Italy and England (possible the only positive one) when going to the supermarket is the lack of simple food you can then cook as you like. Or, at least, looking at others’ baskets it isn’t what the majority of people buy.

As I said, I haven’t been left unaffected by such disastrous eating habits, which is why I put on far too much weight since I moved to England. And this is also why, after reaching possibly the bottom last month, I’ve decided it’s time to unearth my old diet, the one my nutritionist did for me in 2005, and follow it religiously until I lose at least 6kg. The point is, my idea of healthy food sometimes still clashes with English idea of healthy food, or healthy eating habits. Everyone in the office declares to be on a diet, and I see them either munching on carrots, eating yoghurts and fruits, abhorring pasta, potatoes and bread. It makes me scratch my head, because that, to me, is starving, not being on a diet. Back in 2005, I lost 22kg in 6 months, eating pasta, potatoes, bread, pizza, even cakes and biscuits, and that was even without physical activity. It took me 5 years to gain not even half of them back. I think food is one of the massive cultural differences between my own country and the one I’m living in I will never get used to it, and that will never stop leaving me puzzled.

Staying at home yesterday morning was so tempting. First, because walking all the way to the tube with snow in your face wasn’t that appealing. Secondly, because outside it all looked too beautiful to think I would have to waste a day in a dark office in Hammersmith. Stanhope Road goes down, on a very steep hill a few metres after my block, and then up again right where a little bridge crosses the road. Trees and taller buildings on one side form some sort of frame to the road itself which, normally, wouldn’t be anything worth seeing. This morning it was all completely covered in snow, a white thick layer that made me want to grab a plastic bag, put it under my bum and slide down the road as I used to do on the mountains when I was younger. I looked at the little bridge in the distance, turned and found an even more beautiful Hornsey Lane. As I was walking down the road to get to the tube, I thought I would have loved to just spend the day outside, walking up and down those roads. I wanted to take photos, but I didn’t have time to stop. I heard the familiar noise of the W5 climbing (that bus doesn’t run, it climbs, probably pulled by agonizing hamsters) the road, and promptly jumped on it because being on a bus was better than drag myself with snow up my ankles for the tortuous roads leading to the station. Like a broken record, I kept watching out of the window and think ‘this is stunning, this is stunning’, but considering the tube was running I had no excuses to stay at home or even get in late.

The disappointment of not being able to spend a day playing was partly compensated by the fact nothing, not even a light dusting was awaiting for me in Hammersmith. London has weird atmospheric phenomena.

More morning pictures:

The only good thing about last flights of the day to and from London on 22 December and 2 january respectively is the social scenario. Italians living abroad and coming back home for Christmas on the former, English coming back from holidays (and a few Italians going back to London) on the latter. Needless to say this changes completely your flying experience.

22 December. Gatwick. An airport I fiercely detest, if only because you never know which gate you’re supposed to go to until it actually opens. This translates into a long waiting staring at a screen, which makes waiting in airports on your own even more depressing. If your flight is a flight to Rome, the situation is a bit more complex. Everyone knows the gate opens at 4.50 because they’ve told you so, but there will always be someone who decides to stand in front of the very last screen, right next to the doors, from 3.30. It’s only a matter of second before everyone else runs to the screen and stands as well, as close as your enemy (other passengers) as possible. Then, everyone of course starts grumbling and complaining, very loudly and all at once, that the gate doesn’t show up on the screen, regardless of the fact the screen clearly states ‘gate opens at 4.50′ and it’s 3.30. If anything, it’s probably because Italians cannot conceive the idea of information being given and being what is actually going to happen, especially if transports are involved. The crowd grows exponentially by the minute, people look around suspiciously trying to locate the fastest way to sneak out avoiding bags and children, or walking over both if necessary. Some pretend they’re going for a walk just to mysteriously re-appear 4 rows ahead of you, even closer to the door leading to the gate. Tense moments. More loud chatting and complaining. AND THEN IT BEGINS. You run for your life, even if you’re on a wheelchair, because it doesn’t matter if it’s completely pointless as there’s another waiting room, YOU HAVE TO BE THE FIRST. Once in the waiting room, no one actually sits. They all crash at the gate, creating an even thicker and louder crowd that doesn’t even allow crew members to get through the door.

Aforementioned flight on the 22nd was a usual one (like this, that is) so far. But once in the waiting room we were told we had to wait for another hour. Then another hour. People push on the front. Someone passes out, and we are told to please spread across the room – well, they, I am quietly sitting in a corner watching. In what was then mayhem, the very brave captain enters the room and faces the crowd of enraged Italians and said we are 2 crew members short, one arriving from East London, and we then have to wait another hour. We are now on the verge of revolution and, like in any other critical situation, bonding between compatriots begins. Because Italians are Italians, everyone is hugging/patting/joking/telling the secrets of their souls to each other within the first 2 minutes of conversation.

My travel companions (who I also sat next to on the plane) were a girl and a man I never knew the name of. The interesting aspect of these flights so close to Christmas is that you have the chance to hear different life stories from people coming from your same background. The girls had just moved to London after 2 years in Germany, and she was working in advertising for the same company she was working for in Germany. The guy moved to London 6 year ago to be with his now ex-girlfriend, and had been working for UNICEF since then, also spending some time in Africa. It is somehow relieving to hear other Italians sharing your views. Ever since I moved to London I had to struggle with the widely diffused idea all I do is being on permanent holiday, because that’s what you do in London. And, of course, I am guilty of high treason for leaving my country. Without mentioning the question ‘but what has my country done for me?’, it is soothing to talk to someone who shares your language and cultural background without having to justify everything you’ve done over the past 3 years. When I decided to leave Rome I remember saying I had spent my life justifying myself, and when I’m Italy I still spend half of my time justifying myself. Justifying why I chose a place that isn’t ‘the best city in the world’, ‘your home’ or ‘your roots’.

The answer is clear and simple: London is everything Rome isn’t. I can’t go into details on why because it will take me all night, but you can see it from the reasons people give me when I say I prefer London: ‘Food!’ ‘People!’ ‘History!’ ‘Sun!’. This only makes me shake my head in despair and cements, year after year, my idea that no political, economical and historical reason is an adequate justification of why Italy is what it is today. The real, tragic reason is in people’s heads, which will never ever change unless said people decide to stick their noses out of the 4 walls of their houses and see themselves and their – our – country with a slightly more objective eye. I see no hope in the near future, but I am only free to say so with a few minority of people and those who, like me, had to leave before being stifled. And who still stifle every time the set foot on our homeland.

2 January. Fiumicino. I arrive at the gate. Silence. Pretty much everyone is sitting either reading or listening to their iPods, or simply whispering to each other animatedly. When the gate opens, 90% of the people calmly stand up and start forming a perfect queue. The remaining 10% arrives from the other side of the airport running and with brute force positions themselves at the side of the queue, right beside the people at the front of said queue. Nationality of the 10% is left to the imagination of the reader. The 90% is clearly very annoyed, as a slight movement of the eyebrows reveals. When finally on the plane, finding a seat is almost a pleasure. I hit a poor guy with my handbag, but he apologises to me. We take off. Quiet flight. Painful landing for me. I go out of the plane, feel the freezing air on my face and take a deep breath, the exact opposite of what I do when I arrive on the other side of the Channel. I think I’m home – which is, by the way, such a relative concept.

I am a city girl. Born and raised in Rome, then moved to London – never lived anywhere else. I am not used to snow, and believe it or not I physically saw snow for the first time when I was 14. I started going skiing on the Alps every year then, and I suppose I saw all the snow I hadn’t seen for 14 years. Last time it snowed in Rome it was the day of my Christening (that they had to postpone as people couldn’t leave their houses, by the way), which means 25 years ago. It never, ever snows in Rome. When there’s sleet, the whole city stops, not because of actual problems, but because everyone goes out of their cars, stops in the street, comes out of houses and shops, looking up to the sky and going ‘ooooooooh’. So, this was to say I can’t deny I do sympathize with Londoners’ fascination with snow.

Now, what happened last February was fantastic. I woke up and thought ‘wow, it’s so quiet today’. Then opened the curtains and thought ‘BLOODY HELL!’.

I got a text from my boss telling me to stay at home and have a snowball fight. I spent the rest of the day doing just what a kid would do – playing with the snow, giggling, staring our of the window. For the first time ever, people were actually – shocking! – smiling at you in the street. I was happy and bouncy, but English people were definitely happier. Mad with a primordial joy at the sight of this white and soft thing falling out of the sky.

Even more amusing was the news, ‘A blizzard on London! A city in panic! Everything’s shut! Don’t go out! DOOMSDAY! REPENT YOUR SINS AND PREPARE TO MEET YOUR CREATOR!’ kind of thing. Snow on a city that isn’t used to it and that relies so much on public transports is obviously a problem, but the way people were picturing it it looked as if 5 metres of snow were covering the whole of London, soon to become the new Arctic Pole. The dramatic titles of weather-related news always amuse me. ‘In a night, the amount of rain for the entire summer fell on London!’ – that was for a storm back in August. That’s because you have never seen proper rain, only that annoying drizzle that doesn’t even exist in other countries. Rain is something that floods the city in 10 minutes, and keeps on going with that intensity for days. Just like ‘heavy snowfall’ is something that forces you to stay indoor because you can’t open the door of your house.

But back to the snow in February. People’s reactions were what amused me the most. People rolling in the snow with their friends, children, dogs, both, but also people belonging to the category mentioned above – evil snow, cold snow, annoying snow, Armageddon close. Watching Londoners’ reactions made my day, really. At the end of the day I was supposed to meet up with someone in Crouch End, but got a message saying he ‘couldn’t face the snow again’. Face? I remember thinking ‘Aww bless. You English, I love you all’. I walked to Crouch End anyway, for a change of scenery and food shopping. I am not sure whether it was just because of the time, but it was quite remarkable and certainly highly amusing how people were attacking shelves and queuing as if they had to fill their kitchens and save food for war. I felt ashamed to walk out with a humble bottle of milk and some bread. If I had told people I had walked from home to Crouch End for good 15 minutes, I would have probably been declared heretic and burnt on a stick next to the Clock Tower.

I finished my day with a hot chocolate, watching the snow still falling outside with a grin on my face. Had I had a fireplace, I would have been a perfect illustration for a children’s book which – admittedly – wouldn’t have been a very flattering end.

To be honest, I hadn’t had a great week, at all. My flatmate left for Belgium this morning, meaning I would be on my own and with no one to rant to at night until next Sunday. I didn’t really want to go out today, but when I opened the fridge this morning I realised I could not avoid a trip to the supermarket. After a remarkably shit day yesterday, it looked like London had graciously decided to give us a bright sunny day, so I put my several layers on and went out. Considering it was such a nice day, I thought I’d walk to Crouch End rather than take a bus to the superstores – I didn’t need much food anyway as it would be just me for a week. I like walking on Hornsey Lane when the weather is nice because I love how bare trees look like when the sky is clear and the sun never high on the horizon. I’ve always found trees in London particularly…decorative? Photogenic? Simply pretty to look at? It’s like they create some sort of pattern in the sky. When I was at King’s College I loved sneaking next door to the Somerset House and having a cup of tea sitting in the terrace, watching the Big Ben and the London Eye behind the branches. It is one of my favourite memories of my MA days.

While I was walking down the hill I kept observing every detail as if it was the first time – the church, the houses disappearing down side roads, mums with their babies (what it is with babies in Crouch End by the way?), the Alexandra Palace and the bell tower of Muswell Hill in the distance. And I felt happy. I was saying to my flatmate the other day how glad I was we eventually didn’t end up living in Crouch End, not because I no longer liked it, but simply because all the estate agents we had to struggle with were there, and I had somehow got fed up with it. I don’t entirely take this statement back, but this morning I somehow found myself appreciating Crouch End again, and I was glad I’m still at walking distance.

I love North London. I love how you don’t need to go all the way to central London to have everything you need. I love how Crouch End, Highgate seem to be a world on their own, self-sufficient. I also love how you get a completely different sense of everyday life, which isn’t just shops, offices, tourism, anything someone visiting London might think London is. This is obviously true in every part of London I guess, but it is a new feeling for me, something I had never experienced while I was living in Wood Green. Partly, it is because I never had a routine – I was a student first, then unemployed or only half employed anyway. Either way, it was a pleasant feeling.

With my (rather poor) loot in my bag, I decided to take a bus and go to Tottenham Court Road afterwards – yes, that kind of clashes with what I said above, but the day was just too beautiful to come back home immediately, so I thought I’d pop into Foyles and buy a couple of books for a friend. I didn’t stay long in the mayhem of Christmas shopping, but both bus journeys continued the wonderful feeling of just…falling in love. The little parks in Camden, St.Pancras, the buildings in Russell Square, people on the bus with me…everything hit me and gave me an indescribable sense of happiness and achievement. I might have had a tough time with flat-related woes and job, but I still feel the same way towards this city, which isn’t easy to live in. Coming back to the parallel I draw at the beginning, it’s like when you think habit has killed your relationship and you suddenly realise that no, your enthusiasm is still there as strong as ever.

I came back home, had a cup of tea and since then time just slipped away without me noticing. I have so much to do – cleaning, tidying up, some research I didn’t finish doing at work on Friday, cooking. All in all, it would have been wiser to just stay at home and do my stuff without rushing, but I don’t regret having ‘lost’ 4 hours of my Sunday if what I gained is a sense of inner peace – something this corner of the world has always given me since I was 15. This is a successful, long-term relationship.

I love mornings like this.

People-watching must be the most popular (and often unconfessed) daily activity of a Londoner. As an Italian, I’ve always found this fascinating, probably because if you were in Italy sitting somewhere on your own watching around, there would only be two possible scenarios: someone would come and smash your face with a polite ‘what the fuck are you looking at, eh?’, no matter how discreetly you were looking around, OR they would look at you back as if you were a freak. Sometimes both. In Rome, sitting by a window in a coffee place, on your own, watching outside, would be almost socially unacceptable. However, this is London, so different scenario. The people you see around Old Street station can be divided into two categories: men in smart dresses and women in tight dresses, or musicians. Common feature is they all run, they run like mad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more fast-paced place than that bit around Old Street station, not even King’s Cross at rush hour. There is just something about the way people come and go that makes me think this is the best visual representation of London you’ll ever get. As ridiculous and cliched as it may sound, I like trying to imagine what everyone does, where they are going, what instruments they’re carrying (it isn’t always so obvious!). You get so engaged with the scene you’re looking at you forget the unbereable noise of cars, buses, trains, heels on the pavement. To me, it feels a bit like being in a bubble with jazz music in the background, drifting out of my life for a while and watching it from outside, reflected in the (ordered) chaos of the people running around and the buses – what is, in short, my and everyone’s daily life in this city.

Today, in arguably one of the ugliest places in central London, I found some sort of inner peace.