Thursday, 20 February 2014

Cheerio old chap



Tower Bridge

Clockwise from top left: Piccadilly Cirucs; Big Ben; Tower Bridge

Clockwise from top left: Portobello Road; The Gherkin; St Pauls Catherdral


We never meant to get this involved.

It was never supposed to be a serious thing.

We told ourselves that it would be no strings attached – that we could walk away at any moment and nobody would need to get hurt.

But gradually, moment by moment, day by day, our connection grew deeper and deeper. We slowly got to know each other, grew to like each other, and before we knew it, we were in way too deep.


We arrived in London with a plan to get a job, work for 6 months and then head home. Six months soon became a year, and a year became two. And now, exactly two-and-half-years to the day after we left Australia, we are heading home.

Living in London has been an incredible experience. We’ve enjoyed a huge amount of freedom and done our best to explore every corner of the city…so much so that we’ve seen more of the city than many Londoners. There are too many highlights to detail here, but if we had to sum it all up, it would be having the time to scratch below the surface and appreciate the true rhythm and pulse of the city – a deeper understanding and intimacy that we hope will stay with us forever.

Preparing to leave London, wrap up our adventures and move home has caught both of us off guard and left us trying to make sense of a gamut of emotions. On the one hand, we can’t wait to get home and reconnect with our family and friends and fill the gaping void that we have felt for so much of the past couple of years. On the other, it feels genuinely strange to be ending this chapter of our lives – one in which we have experienced and achieved more than either of us ever dreamt or thought possible,

At this very point in time, we’re struggling to reconcile and make sense of the two sides of this coin; the new page that we are about to turn still feels quite fuzzy, ill-defined and uncertain. In time we trust that it will all make sense, but right at this very moment, it’s a tad unsettling.  

So, thanks to everyone for your love and support. Thanks to everyone back home for always having our back, and thanks to everyone in London for your incredible friendship. Oh, and thanks to everyone who has visited this blog. We never imagined that it would go on for as long as it has…we’ve had heaps of fun doing it, and we hope you’ve enjoyed perusing.

And London, you’ve stolen a huge chuck of our hearts that we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to replace, but this is goodbye….for now.

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Toodlepip Notting Hill


All of these photos were taken from the window of our fourth floor studio flat overlooking Notting Hill

Last weekend we packed up and moved out of our studio in Notting Hill. It had been coming down the road at us for a while, marking the final countdown to finishing work before moving home to Australia.

Living in Notting Hill was a privilege that we’ll never take for granted – being literally a stone’s throw from the heart of Portobello Road market was a joy that gave us a little tingle down the spine every time we stepped out our front door.

With that said, it wasn’t all peachy. Our flat certainly had a few quirks…a few selected highlights included the coin operated electricity meter that the land lady could arbitrarily adjust at her leisure; no hot running water out of the taps meaning that we had to boil the kettle to wash the dishes; an electric toilet that would grumble and spurt water up out of the bathroom sink day and night when other residents used their plumbing; the flat being so old and wonky (allegedly from World War II bombing damage) that we almost needed to don hiking boots to traverse the slope from one side of the studio to the other; and a bathroom that was so small that the shower door couldn’t be fully opened because it hit the toilet.  

But with all that, we loved it. We made it our own and will never forget our time there. We will definitely miss our little routine of strolling down the ‘bello on Saturday morning to buy fresh veggies from the market before settling in at our favourite coffee shop.

Oh, and after 19 months of living in Notting Hill, we never did get around to looking for the Blue Door from the film, and only discovered the book shop yesterday by accident. Oh well…maybe next time.