Arriving

"Everything looks like Coronation Street."

The tall brick houses reminded me of everything I should expect from England and I felt safe in the knowledge that I had finally travelled sufficiently far enough away from home to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

I stayed in a backpacker's that night, courtesy of Bunac.  For some reason I cannot place that hostel now, lost in a sea of varying recollections. The streets were small but crowded and I felt claustrophobic. I slept with my belongings tucked closely to my body as I slept in a dorm housing men of various nationalities.

The next morning I went downstairs and enquired as to why I wasn't in a mixed dorm. The young guy looked at me blankly and said, "You were."

I didn't leave the hostel after breakfast of tea and toast. I calmly did my laundry, leaning up against the tumble dryer for hours as I read a magazine, the closest thing to normality I'd had in six weeks. I took strange pleasure in folding my hot laundry just the way I figured any independent adult would and packing it neatly away in my suitcase, pretending it was a set of drawers that didn't smell of airport. I reorganised the few belongings in my suitcase, the way one feng shuis their bedroom and I made a to do list.

I was tired and it was busy outside. London was busy. I lived in a city now and I knew that once I left the doors of the hostel I would have to deal with what was out there. I finished my magazine. Inhaled the smell of my my newly laundered clothes. And then set off for Swiss Cottage in north west London.

The one with Alice Ayers

Have you lived somewhere too long when you know the streets like the back of your hand? When you are able to identify locations you've already been, watching the play unfold two years later from the exact same spot?