Our House

The view from the bedroom is fantastic, you can see over to the hills beyond and at night the view is filled with the lights from the houses in the town below. It's so vast; I'm used to seeing houses and gardens opposite. Because our house is built on a hill it takes some getting used to. For instance the the front room, accessed via the front door is also, at the back of the house, on the first floor. So after a while looking out the window into the first floor of the houses opposite you turn around to see people walking past the window by the front door, which makes you think they are floating or flying past.

We've been here almost three weeks now and it still feels new walking downstairs to the front room. We've almost got the place sorted now, found room for everything. It's been so busy these last few weeks, it'll be nice just to sit in the house and enjoy it. We haven't had much time to explore our surroundings. There's a cricket field down the hill, I could hear the sound of leather on willow and polite clapping the other Saturday evening. Apart from that we haven't got much further than the pub on the corner.

We've got a yard too which will be handy for summer nights, when the rain stops. Until then we can sit inside on the sofa watching the people float by.

The Booklovers

Part of the joy of moving is packing up all the stuff you’ve been dragging around for years but have never found any use for, knowing full well it’s just going to sit in a cupboard till the next time you move. The plan was to give away a stack of books to the bookshop two doors down the road.

The reality is I’m handing the shopkeeper one book. He doesn't get up from his chair. He’s staring at the image of a bird on the back cover. I don’t know what the bird is called and I’ve a sneaky suspicion he’s no ornithologist either. He calls the bird something like ‘whirly-whirl’, a pet name for sure.

“Ah interesting, a whirly-whirl.”

“Sorry?”

“The bird on the back. Whirly-whirl.”

“Right.”

“Does the Whirly-whirl feature in the book?”

“I don’t remember the bird. It’s a book about a travelling musician.”

“Ah, so he travels with the Whirly-whirl?”

“I have to leave now.”

I pitter-patter out of the shop as he sits fixated on the back cover.

The next day, having lost my sentimentality, I have a stack of books to give away. I’m relieved to find it’s a different shopkeeper. He's standing, slightly stooped in an apologetic way. He tells me I’m very kind to give him all these books.

“Are you sure you’ve finished with them?”

“Yes thanks.”

He volunteers in the bookshop once a week. He asks me if I live locally, I tell him two doors down for about the next half an hour. It’s just a flat above the shops but it was my home. It turns out he lives with his mother and they live on the street with the Aston Martin, paying £50 rent a week. That’s the way to do it. His neighbours pay £400 a week. But then he tells me that when she passes on he’ll have to find somewhere else. He likes it in Highbury too and he’s worried he’ll have to move away. I chat to him a while and then tell him I need to finish packing the last of my stuff.

There’s no sign of the book I brought in yesterday. I’ve no doubt though that yesterday’s shopkeeper is at home, scouring the pages for Whirly-whirl.

Highbury, don't leave me

Early June, late night tube, I’m sitting with a full rucksack, my pockets full of paraphanalia, delicate wine glasses in a box by my feet. I’m leaving my Highbury flat and I don’t feel ready.

Earlier I hoovered up the dust in four bare rooms, not wanting to look in the cupboards because I knew they were still full. What do I want with this stuff anyway? When I started this site I called it searching for home and this flat felt like home, more-or-less since I moved in, certainly since I bought my rug. It really tied the room together to quote the Dude from the Big Lebowski. You see every time I move it’s because I’ve overstayed my welcome, I’ve worn out my flats like old socks; I’ve always been desperate to get out. This time is different. I like the flat, I like my landlord, I like Highbury. I was originally planning to stay in the area, hoping to move around the corner to the street with the Aston Martin on. Not because of the car, because it’s a really nice street, situated between Clissold Park and Highbury Barn. So nice, that the couple of places for rent there were way beyond our price range. I think if we’d held on we may have lucked out, but T found us a house, and we started thinking maybe we could live in a house like real adults live in, with a yard to sit in throughout the summer time. It’s out in the sticks but when we saw it, it felt right.

I had this idea of moving really slowly, taking a few boxes at a time in the car, depositing my nest gradually in the new house. Living between the two houses for a couple of weeks. But now I’ve started packing and moving I just want the thing to be over with. Most of my stuff is over at the new place. I’ve a few things left in the flat but they’re playing on my mind.

I opened a drawer, it was full. How did that stuff get there? I decided I’d sort it later. I wanted to take the wine glasses now to toast the new house.

I’m sitting on the train thinking about my old home. Things I take for granted in the middle of the city; buying a pint of milk at midnight, getting home from a gig at the Roundhouse, jumping on a bus to Oxford street outside my house, the sound of the football stadium, someone casually crossing the road in nothing but a pair of shorts on a rainy Saturday - just the variety of life you see on the streets, these things may be harder to come by in our house on the hill, but hey, everything is changing. It’s a new season.