First post from London

I’m in London. I’m in London. I’m in London. It’s like a mantra I have to keep repeating in order to make it real. It doesn’t help that I’m in that sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, fuzzy-minded mental state where everything inside your body feels like it is swimming. We’re here, and it’s like my body and mind don’t know what to do with themselves.

The good thing is that all the goodbyes have been said, and now it’s only time for hellos…many many hellos. Hello city, hello flat, hello left-sided driving, hello Freddy every morning and every day after school…! But more on that later.

Saying goodbye to Mikey at the airport was very difficult. I was definitely an airport crier. Then we had three hours to wait for our plane to board. We only realized after the first two hours that we in fact did have free Internet access, which is definitely a change from previous times I’ve travelled and cursed the idea that public access to the Internet might not be a basic human right.

And then there was the seven hour flight. It wasn’t terrible, but it did remind me of the hours spent on Greyhound busses going up north, where you want to sleep so badly but there is only the white noise of engines and other peoples’ conversations that keep you in a kind of static alertness, ever-restless. Freddy was definitely not pleased with how poorly his body fit between those normal-sized-person seats, but I think I appeased him a bit when I offered him half of my headphone set to watch Ironman 2. Which is not such a terrible movie, for that kind of movie, although I’m pretty sure Scarlett Johansson’s role in it was completely superfluous, no matter how dead sexy she may be.

And then we were landing in London, at Gatwick airport, and everyone was speaking in stereotypically English accents, which aren’t stereotypical at all because now we are the stereotypical North Americans – and as I recall from my time in Scotland, while we’re here we will indubitably be assumed American until proven Canadian. We weren’t even to the baggage collection area before Freddy started saying things like “cheerio” and “jolly good”. Fact is, it is almost impossible to resist the urge to put on a fake British accent once here.

And then we were trying to navigate ourselves through this crazy new megopolous to our flat in Hackney, which we were pretty much as far from as possible when landing at Gatwick aiport. Luckily transit here is just as straightforward as I remembered it to be. Cramming a large Fred with a large bag into a small Tube, on the other hand, was definitely a challenge. I don’t doubt that in that moment he felt the claustrophobic side of city life quite sharply. I couldn’t help but looking at him every five minutes to smile weakly and try to read whether his face was saying “why the hell did I let Robin convince me to do this”.

Yes, there are definitely doubts. I was feeling nervous, trying to find our way here. And that nervousness was magnified times one million by my being nervous about whether Fred was nervous, and whether he might come to hate me for dragging him, this lovely Northern boy who is most at home fishing in a canoe miles from civilization, to one of the world’s largest, most city-est of cities to live my dream. I’ve never been afraid to take risks, but taking risks while someone else is holding your hand is quite a different cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, I did have a lovely cuppa already, and also soaked in a luxurious deep bathtub. I don’t know what I’ve done right to be blessed by such beautiful flats in recent years, but I am glad that that good apartment karma has come my way. This post has been long enough, but I will just say that I already know this lovely space will be a needed and welcome respite while we settle into this new life.

Now for some sleep….