Wind….

It’s windy again. Well, it hasn’t really stopped over the last 2 weeks. London has always been windy, but the last week has been truly weird. Way too much of that stuff that tends to appear whenever you’re least expecting it… Yes, we had a storm this week, and a very windy one for that matter. Apparently those two go hand in hand and we felt it. It was not obvious when I first left home on Thursday morning, but when I reached my bus stop the first impression proved me wrong! I was thinking about holding on the bus sign not to be blown away! With the next hours it got worse, to the extend that you could hear the wind blowing around the building and in the lift shaft, our main door got blown open a few times and news of trees on the roads, electricity blackouts and closed roads started to come in. By 4pm some of the main railway stations were closed, all tubes with overland tracks had sever delays and the road troubles were endless. At a certain point even our small road got closed by the Police, no idea why…

Now it’s Sunday evening and the wind is still here, much less, but I can hear it while I’m sitting at home. We’ll have to wait and see what is coming next…first a tornado in Central London, then the fog emergency just before christmas and now the hurricane. I hope I’m wrong in saying that we’ll probably be drowning in snow over the next month! I’ll keep you posted.

A few days ago I read a blog of a good frind of mine, who is currently in living and working in Shanghai. He had just returned from home in Milan and shared his thoughts about those places that he considers being home. There is home-home and the 2nd home, there is the away-from-home-home and the home you think of as home, but it really isn’t. It was very strange to read those words, particularly as I have the same feelings for the last 5 years. Where I consider home? I don’t really know anymore…. Milan is my town, I grew up there, my parents and my closest friends live there. I do miss them all dearly, but over the years our lives have all moved on. Work, boyfriends, girlfriends, flats, people you once knew don’t even recognize you on the street anymore, bars and clubs I once knew inside out have changed name or management, the shops around the corner where I used to spend my pocket money have closed down and others have opened – it’s not really the city that I used to know. I love it, nevertheless and every time the airplane is approaching one of the Milan airports I have a smile up to my ears and can’t wait to get home.

London is what I call my home-away-from-home. I could not do withouth it anymore. Every day has been a discovery, every month an experience and every year the realisation that… “Wow, another year. I guess I’ll just stick around for another one!” It’s nice to arrive, look at the panorama while the plane is approaching Heathrow (depending on the landing route you can actually see some of the landmarks), walk the short way from Paddington and step through the flat door. Suddenly I’m back in my room and I don’t even care if it’s raining. It feels right as well and it’s weird…..

I haven’t made it as far as Shanghai, but… Miky you are just so right. Funny how you adapt so quickly to your surroundings…. you know which tube exit to take and which tunnel so you can avoid that very long traffic light, or which train carriage to get on the Heathrow Express to get a seat, or where your favourite biscuits are kept in your local supermarket, you have the right change for a pint at your local pub and you don’t even worry anymore when getting on the bus, because you know exactly that it’s easier to sit upstairs and get up after the curve, otherwise you end up flying down the stairs. You can list at least 5 good bars where to go for a drink, cross roads blindly even if the light is red (that must be a London habit, I constantly give heart attacks to friends visiting me….), tourists ask you for directions and it’s actually more fun to do sightseeing with the normal bus and tell stories yourself. I could go on forever.

Enough thinking for tonight, it has been a quiet Sunday and I intend finishing the day how I started it: pillow, blanket, couch and a good movie. And here we go…almost ready for Monday morning? No way!!

Tine