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.