Everything changes

So. England. It’s already Thursday and, although I’ve been writing blog posts in my head, there hasn’t been space or time to type them. Each day has run onto the other, leaving me so drained & jet-lagged that I slept until 1pm today.

The journey over here from Newark was a model of ease. Slathered in moisturiser, coddled in cashmere, pretending I wasn’t travelling in Goat, I read, watched crap films (17 Again & something I can’t even remember), fended off the flirtatious advances of the man in the aisle seat by wearing headphones even though I wan't listening to anything, even managed to choke down the microwaved egg & cheese breakfast bagel (hmm, Virgin you are really spoiling us) and was off the plane and on the Tube within 20 minutes of landing.

That miracle turnaround was because I’ve had my irises scanned so don’t have to queue at Immigration, and because my huge Tumi came out first at Baggage Reclaim. Joy all round. I immediately hopped it to the Underground and thence to Farringdon Station in Clerkenwell.

I spent so much time in EC1 in my twenties: eating in Cicada right back when it first opened, getting film biked to & from Metro (I started my career as an art assistant on a magazine), dancing in Turnmills, borrowing chairs from Vitra from shoots. Walking past all these places felt so nostalgic and so distant. My life has changed so much since then I can hardly recognise the person I once was.

As I turned onto dimly lit & empty Northburgh Street, H appeared simultaneously from another side road. I stuck out my tongue at him and he stopped for a classic double take. Wonderful timing. Especially as he then lugged my case up the entrance stairs.

M was home too, and we sat around the big dining table in the vast open space living area laughing and catching up, me shoveling in buttery Marmite toast and drinking Campari & tonic, H making his supper. As we talked, I thought about the hedonism that had gone on in that apartment before H met M, and how it has become the home of two of my most favourite people who are now building their new life together.

We’ve all changed so much (for the better), even in the short two and a half years since I moved to America.