It’s my first full day in London and I’m walking around South Kensington as the city wakes for the day and week ahead. Birds are chirping in square gardens, the sun is warm on my skin, and the morning light glows warmly against the white painted terraces. I spent the day before loving love at a friend’s wedding in Richmond Park, arriving almost directly from the airport and it was the most perfect way to start this month-long trip. It feels good to be here; it feels good to be back.
Hampstead Heath in late summer means feeling far away from the city while walking along paths cloaked in the dapple light of oaks.
I hear the ladies’ pond before I see it: a singing out of women’s joy carrying through the trees. A return to utopia at last, at last.
The long, soft grass in the small meadow is still damp with morning dew but I sit down, enjoying the warmth of the summer sun upon my skin. A woman sets down a Sainsbury’s bag and a picnic blanket, then digs out her thermos and a white China cup with a grey pattern around its lip. She delights in each sip of tea before hauling Hilary Mantel’s final tome out of the bag. The whole moment has an air of such deep and pure contentment: a woman truly at peace with who she is and how she is choosing to spend her time.
I’d forgotten how richly layered London is. Parts of the Roman London Wall rub shoulders with the mid-century Barbican. The medieval church stands resolute next to the Gherkin. The past and the present are constantly overlapping.
I keep imagining glimpses of my younger self – hopping between tube lines and racing from A to B, mere months into my London life – and feel such tenderness towards her, for the life she was carving out for herself.
This trip is full of nostalgia – it was never not going to be. But it’s also full of excitement for what the future holds. A perfectly-timed pause between the recent past and the fast-approaching next chapter.
The first few days are jam-packed. I feel like I’ve been let loose on London and I try to cram everything in. But I’ll never be able to, so I take things slowly where I can.
I remind myself of the benefits of a holiday in a place I know like the back of my hand – I don’t feel compelled to tick off tourist sites. Instead, it’s lunches and dinners and morning coffees with friends, and relaxing in my favourite places in between.
I notice how orange the streetlights are, the extent to which pedestrians have right of way, and the large wealth discrepancies across the city. I notice that there seems to be a London summer uniform for many women – mid-length ditsy-print floral dress, paired with a white trainer. The way the city is steeped in pollution.
I go to my former housemate’s new home and happily spot all the familiar items from our old flat. Our other beloved former housemate comes over and we order a Chinese takeaway and eat and talk and it’s immediately like no time has passed. It feels so, so comfortable to slip back into old conversations and remind each other of moments that nobody else knows about or would have any context of or would care to learn. Our own secret world.
We retrace old footsteps. Looping walks of once-local parks. Old commutes. Old journeys to local plant shops. Old trips home from shops. All the way back to our old home.
“I know these streets like the back of my hand,” I say at one point.
“I could do this walk in my sleep,” I say at another.
In retreading these old and familiar paths, we rummage around the past too. Old relationships. Old memories. Sifting through things, shifting feelings around; making sense of it all.
I’m at Paddington, waiting in a crowded, sweaty queue for a delayed train when a friend texts asking if I’m there.
I turn around to look for her and see another friend entirely. The three of us catch up while we wait, then rush and squeeze onto the same carriage together. The natural serendipity makes me feel like I’m a Londoner once again.
I’m glad I’ve come. I’m glad I’m here.
Everything is quiet and the sky is soft and muted over a Sunday evening in Berkshire. Gentle orange light illuminates red-brick homes. Twittering birdsong rings out. The ground is damp and vibrant green, luscious from recent rain.
“The summer hasn’t been like this,” friends keep telling me.
It’s been cold and rainy, they say, unlike the hot sunshine of the past week.
“I brought it with me,” I joke, “you’re welcome.”
For it to be this hot this late in the year is obviously a sign of things not being okay. And yet it’s hard not to relish London in the summer sun.
The city changes so much when it’s hot, especially when there are days and days of heat. There’s the lethargy and the tossing and turning nights in rooms and flats and homes not built for temperatures this high. But there’s also a looseness, a heat-induced freedom and sense of joy. The outsides of pubs overflow with standing beer drinkers after days wrongly spent inside behind a desk. For those that can avoid such a cruel fate in weather this good, there’s sunbathing in the park and dips in Hampstead’s ponds and ice creams quickly consumed, or dripping, along the river.
I land in Menorca, get to my hotel and then head straight to the beach. The water is refreshing against the heat of the day and shallow enough to walk and walk as the water gently swells around me. I swim for a bit and then have lunch by the beach, still covered in a thin crust of sand and salt.
That evening, after a summer storm rolls through, I go for a walk. The air is thick with humidity but the light is cool as sunset sinks over the town. It feels good to put on different clothes and shoes for dinner and aimlessly explore before sitting down for a meal.
Outside a restaurant, I get talking to the people behind me in the queue. They currently live in South East London like I used to and ask me to join them – a pleasure and a thrill when travelling alone.
It takes a few days to properly relax. A few days away from the city hustle and bustle and away from catching up with friends to truly unwind and become comfortable with solo travel once again.
I head to the beach one morning and swim out, out, out until I’m simply floating, my hair moving around me, following the gentle ebb and flow of the sea. There’s nowhere else I need to be. I can stay as long as I like. It’s a good feeling.
That evening, a woman walks out of a restaurant and puts her hand out to hail the approaching car.
Her friends fall about in laughter. “That’s a police car!” they call out.
On my final morning in Menorca, the water is crystal clear and flat as a lake. Small, clear fish swim around me. I swim around the perimeter of buoys, before floating in the middle of the cove-like beach. I’m surrounded by rocky cliffs: a custard-like yellow on one side and an almost ochre-orange on the other. Groups of kayakers head into the water from the boat ramp and young children play by the shore but apart from that, it’s quiet and still.
I float and swim, swim and float, gently making my way closer to shore. There’s a man in front of me doing something similar. He stands up, the water coming to his hips, and looks back over the water and calls out “What a day!” before sinking back into the water and heading in to sit in the sun.
We fly into Gatwick over England’s green and pleasant land. Patchwork fields are lined with trees. Hills gently roll and villages bloom out from high streets. The distinctive green of a Southern train slithers through the landscape.
Regent’s Canal is the same as ever: busy and beautiful. The sun shines as I make my way from Hoxton, past my old flat tucked behind Hackney Road, and towards Broadway Market. I walk through familiar streets, relishing in how ingrained they are within me. I don’t need to think or question where I’m going, I have no need for a map.
The last of the hollyhocks, the roses, the sunflowers.
We wake before sunrise, get ready and head out for the day as the birds begin their morning song, as the day begins to glow higher and higher across the east of the city. Pink streaks of light guide us as we head into Charing Cross, the light lifting and stretching as we go past the Shard, the Boomerang and over the river past the Eye. The morning is quiet by Trafalgar Square as we wait for a bus to take us along Piccadilly, past the Ritz and Wellington Arch, and on to Hyde Park Corner. So many London landmarks and it’s only just gone seven.
We keep joking that the day is a perfect ad for London. Walking through an empty Hyde Park as it sparkles with a morning glow. I get my event kit and my official bag and say farewell to my friends as I head over to change into my swimmers and my wetsuit. This is happening. The day has finally come.
I feel surprisingly, perhaps strangely, calm as I head towards the water and wait in the crowd, stretching and adjusting my wetsuit. The nerves return as I walk to the edge of the starting ramp but once I enter the water, I feel at peace.
It’s harder than I’d expected. A recent algae bloom makes me hesitant to put my head beneath the Serpentine’s water and so I complete the half mile loop with a mix of strokes, keeping my head above the water and trying my best to ignore the gradual sinking of my legs and the increasing crocodile-like verticality of my swimming.
I turn around to look at the surrounding scene again and again. Hyde Park stretching all around me and all of London beyond it. This city. This city!!! The sun continues to rise over the park and glitter across the water – it’s near-blinding at times but beautiful, so unbelievably beautiful.
I feel so lucky to be swimming here at this moment, in this event.
About halfway through I notice three of my friends gathering to the side and cheering me on. It buoys me immediately. I’m not alone.
I keep going, hauling my tired body up the ramp at the end and heading over to meet my friends beyond the finish line. I feel euphoric.
I’m so glad I’ve come here. I’m so glad I did this. I’m so proud of myself.
That night we go for a celebratory dinner, getting off at London Bridge and walking down the achingly familiar Bermondsey High Street. The annual festival is on. We didn’t plan it but it feels serendipitous all the same.
We grab beers and mooch our way through the stalls and to bookshops and admire pub flowers. It feels like summer. It feels like we’re all on holiday. An ad for London if ever there was one: a swim in Hyde Park in the morning and now this.
After dinner, we go for a walk along the Thames but end up helping a drunk man with no survival instincts make his way back to his girlfriend who’d feared him dead. Is this still an ad for London? A dose of reality? Either way, we hope it will keep us in good karmic stead.
I’d booked it months ago but finally the evening comes and my friend and I are heading to the O2 to see Shania Twain on her 25th anniversary tour. We squeal at each other and excitedly point out different people’s outfits: pink cowboy boots to the left, silver sequin and tassel jacket to the right! The concert is incredible – full of people happy beyond belief to be there. It’s nice to be surrounded by so much pure joy.
It’s funny that after such a big weekend halfway through such a big trip, I’m on the flight to Croatia thinking that some of my favourite moments so far have been the quietest ones: the pottering around, getting ready together before a wedding; the cup of tea in the garden when arriving at a friend’s place; waking up and having a slow Sunday breakfast together with my friends. All the moments that have felt most homely, most like living here.
A week in Croatia passes by in a lazy haze of morning breakfasts in the garden with a book in hand, an ice cream a day, and enjoying how casually Roman ruins are scattered around town. On my final day, I go for an afternoon swim. The water is cold at first, then perfect as it glimmers with afternoon light. I squint and swim, my head resting just above the surface, my lips covered in salt.
I head to the wooden bleacher seats and dry off in the lingering, sinking early evening sun. I read, feeling sated and content, as the sun warms my skin, as the water from my hair drips onto my limbs and forms salty rivulets that dry a ghostly white on my legs.
I recount recent weeks and months to a friend and she laughs – “I told you the universe would work things out!”
It becomes a running motto of sorts. I share it with another group of friends and we begin to say “COSMIC!” anytime something aligns, from a tube arriving as we get to the platform to a unexpectedly stumbling upon a favourite cafe chain in the neighbourhood we mooch to.
I tell them of bumping into friends at Paddington, only to leave a busy Covent Garden restaurant, walk down the street, and bump into someone I knew in my high school years. “Cosmic!”
I spend a weekend hanging out – talking, walking, eating, sleeping, and repeat – in South London with friends I used to work with before heading to North London for a reunion with friends from my university days.
It’s a big weekend of catching up and makes me so happy to be able to come back and slot right in. It’s lovely to be this comfortable, to be this at home in friends’ homes.
I finally make it to Regency Cafe, the London icon established in 1946. The woman behind the till takes the orders and calls out the dishes when they’re ready, her voice a resounding boom that carries strongly over the metal clatter of the busy kitchen.
I wonder if this is what London was like when my grandparents were growing up. Laminex tabletops and red checkered curtains. Glass jars of fresh orange juice with a foil seal and plates piled high with English fry ups and chips.
I spend my final few days in London the way I spent my first few: walking.
I take familiar roads and unfamiliar backstreets, walk to meet friends for lunches and dinners, and walk to exhibitions and parks.
It feels like I’ve been here for months, not weeks. The leaves are beginning to turn; there’s an autumn lilt to the air. Evenings creep in, cosy pubs are favoured in place of park hangs and dinners outside.
At the end of the week, I’ll pack my large suitcase and head back to Australia, happy and sated by London. I feel so nourished by time well spent with some of my favourite people, but I’m excited to head back – there’s plenty to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.
Until then, I’ll keep enjoying this beautiful city. I’ll keep thinking to myself – I’m glad I’ve come, I’m glad I’m here.
Sounds like you’ve had the most wonderful time and I’m so happy for you. London in summer and spending time with the people you love really is the most magical thing x