Happy New Year! I'm drinking a cup of American tea (an inappropriate approximation of real tea made in a Mr. Coffee machine with a bag of Tazo English Breakfast and - shudder - half-and-half in lieu of milk) from my hotel corner-room overlooking sunny downtown Bellevue.
A "view" in Bellevue is dominated by sprawling carparks in all directions, attenuated by big box shops and chain restaurants, revealing glimpses of evergreens, mountains and water peeking through the gaps between glass high-rises in the distance. It's not unpleasant, and apart from the tea situation, I can't complain..
The end of 2013 and beginning of the year have been rather travel heavy - jetting from London to Vancouver to my beloved Sunshine Coast, to rural Ontario near Renfrew with a short stint in Ottawa and now back on the West Coast for a week in the Seattle area. I'm off to Prague for another week following before returning home to N7 and maybe that's why I'm feeling a little homesick.
I've written briefly about homesickness here before. It's still a pang I feel acutely whenever I see Instagram photos of Vancouver sushi, the seawall or the North Shore mountains (so, daily then).
It's also a feeling that I get thinking of my kitchen in N7, a pint of ale at the Swimmer and the Holloway Road Waitrose. Gracie and I had some long discussions over the holiday about how much we both miss the West Coast, that invariably end on the depressing note that as displaced and half Brit/Canuck as we both are, we'll always be missing something regardless what country we live in.
I'm not sure what the future holds, but right now I know I love both North London and the West Coast fervently and will pine for the other no matter where I am. Since I'm currently on the West Coast looking out at mountains and carparks, London homesickness dominates.
Which is why I was surprised to come across this post by Susie Bubble about leaving the N7 area - I knew she was a Londoner but I didn't realize she was a neighbour. Although I discovered her blog almost 10 years ago, and attempted her bubble-skirt alterations from my North Shore apartment on Keith Rd with an actual view of Grouse mountain, right now I appreciate her nostalgic farewell to the dodgy neighbourhood around Emirates that we also call home.
You should check out Susie's link as it's much better than this post. But here's some pics from good times had in 2013, in and around our hood and up the Cally from Kings Cross to Archway.
I don't know what it's like to miss a locale, being born here, having lived here my whole life. There's a comfort that develops and soon you just get stuck in this area of forever - not even just an idea, it's more of an acceptance. When the people you've grown up with and have a history with - when those people marry, have children, or move away; I find that there is a substantial feeling of loneliness and you begin to wonder if it was the locale after all. Home is where you make it, apparently.
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