Bridget Jones, air raids and mating foxes. Ah, my first week in London!

Yesterday I had an encounter with one of my all time literary heros. Bridget Jones. Yes, that’s right, she of the blue string soup and big undies. I didn’t bump into her or anything (I haven’t gone totally mad) but stumbled across her little apartment! I was at Borough markets with Lizzie buying whole rabbits, wild pheasant and other very Englishy things, when Lizzie suddenly exclaimed:

“See that pub! Look familiar?”

I must admit that the first thing that came to mind was Harry Potter, before I realised he was too young to go to a pub. Then I looked more closely at the black door and all of a sudden I had a vision of Bridget standing outside it in that flimsy god-awful summer dress, getting absolutely drenched in the closing scenes of Edge of Reason. See, here I am standing in the same spot, just a lot dryer and wearing a few more clothes.

See, it does look familiar, doesn’t it! Well, maybe if you’re a Bridget fan. If not, it probably looks not that dissimilar to millions of other black doors around London.

Talk about literary inspiration for my writing! Finding Bridget Jones’ apartment is akin to a Muslim going on pilgrimage to Mecca.

Anyway, Borough was lovely. I ate a really good chorizo roll which is apparently a must do when you go there, even though it was only morning tea time. The not-putting-on-13kg thing is going really well.

Here’s a couple of shots of the markets that I took using my new fandangle camera which has a million settings that I have no idea how to use. One of the rabbits with their poor little floppy ears (I know rabbits are a pest in Australia, but here they just seem like the pets of Beatrix Potter), and a few of Lizzie shopping up a fresh food storm.

I have spent my first week here in London staying with the lovely Lizzie and Paul* in Barbican. Lizzie is a good friend of my mate Emma Stringer/Nixon (AKA  Dingbat, Dingy, Stringy), who I used to spend a lot of time with when her and Em lived in a share house in West End many years ago – or the hippie commune as we have been affectionately describing it due to the lack of TV, home brewing, veggie growing, group cooking and other hippie-ish things that used to take place there. Great place. Anyway, the only real remnant of Lizzie’s hippie lifestyle these days is the fact she married a self-proclaimed hippie banker and owns a vintage Chanel handbag (recycled, Kath, recycled). They live in the-most-amazing-apartment in Barbican from which I can practically see Australia. It can get a bit windy up there though, some nights it feels like we have our own little Cyclone Yasi beating down the doors. The other night when we were eating dinner Lizzie even suggested at one stage that perhaps we should retire to the safety of the bathroom for dessert. Now that would have been an authentic London experience, just like the bombing air raids from World War II.

Barbican is in The City. So sitting at my computer each day tapping away I can practically imagine that I am Corporate Girl again. Only I can wear my pyjama pants to the office. London seems to have recently caught on to the concept of a Flat White (Hooray!), so I have a bit of a routine each day now of writing for a few hours then wandering the streets of London sipping my Soy Flat White. Strangely just like what I imagined Creative Girl to be doing.

The other thing I imagined Creative Girl to be doing was living in a nice little cottage in the country, strolling the muddy moors like Elizabeth Bennett. So this afternoon I am jumping on a train down to Eastbourne to spend a few nights in Lizzie and Paul’s country cottage. I’ve seen pictures and it looks VERY Jane Austen. In the middle of a lovely green field, 10 minutes walk to the village, surrounded by a clump of trees. It doesn’t look Blair Witch at all. Hhhhmmm. I’m just glad that Lizzie told me in advance about the mating noises of the foxes, because when she demonstrated, it did sound remarkably like a small child being strangled, which would have quite frankly just freaked me out. And I don’t think Colin Firth is going to suddenly materialise to comfort me. I am kind of wishing now that I hadn’t watched those few episodes of Midsommer Murders with Mum in the weeks before I left Bulimba.

Speaking of murders, Lizzie also showed me photos of the beaches around Eastbourne, and it all looks like the white cliffs of Dover. I’ve never been to Dover, but it did remind me of when my baby sister Alison visited there as a young 19 year old, only a week or so after arriving on her own in the UK on a working visa. She had called home from a payphone in Dover, crying miserably to Mum about how much she was hating it and how lonely she was when the phone cut out. And then she didn’t call back. Mum was beside herself with worry for three weeks, imaging Alison’s lifeless body at the foot of the Dover cliffs, when suddenly we received a phone call from Brighton, where she was having just the absolute best time of her life and honestly hadn’t even had time to call. If she had physically been in Australia at the time, she might have been in trouble. I think Mum’s urge to kill her may have slightly outweighed her relief. So now that’s what I think about whenever I imagine Dover – it being all windswept, lonely and depressing. Kind of like the wailing wall.

Anyway, best go and pack a bag of my best country cottage clothing (dang I forgot my wellies and jodhpurs). If you don’t hear from me within a week, please contact the British Police or alternatively a fox hunter.

*I am not including a photo of Paul in this blog because Paul has kindly requested to appear as a character in my book, using his full name, Paul Reeve. He has specifically requested that said character has a thick mane of head hair. Since I figure it is the least I can do as payment for his hotelier services, I have agreed. But I don’t want you all to get any images in your head of what Paul the fictional character looks like – hence no photo of Paul the hippie banker.