I Haven’t Got This Coming Home Lark Right

Back in London, for the first time in 18 months, after more than three years away, I have a list of people I need to see and things I want to do metaphorically as long as my arm.

Things to do are easy enough. But the people take some wrangling, not least…

Well… In a way, I want it to be like it was when we lived in London, where you all hook up in a big gang, pop round each other’s houses, and catch up on each other’s news.

And, between not knowing when we’re going to arrive because of the whole broken arm debacle and the general easy-come easy-go approach that sets in after more than three years travelling – “Oh, ya know, we think we’ll be there next week. Just don’t have tickets yet…” – this proves harder to arrange than anticipated.

I’m just so used to the whole nomad thing that I’m out of the zone of people who keep plans, and diaries, and have regular jobs, and school commitments, and book flights aeons ahead of time that, by normal standards, I’m so annoyingly vague it’s close to sociopathic.

Or, as my dear friend Sarah says, after putting on an enormous and fabulous barbecue for us and a bunch of friends at buggerall notice, “What you need to do is just pick a day, and a pub, and tell everyone you’ll be in it, then whoever wants to come comes. That’s what J does.”

I could have people round my house and cook gigantic, catastrophically organised dinners where the food arrived so late my dear friend Tony had to be scraped off the ceiling after drinking practically his entire bodyweight in red wine.

But I don’t WANT that. I’m not READY for full expat.

I want it to be like it was when we still lived there, where we all popped round each other’s houses and caught up on gossip, where I was naturally on the invitation list to these sorts of things instead of having to have them put on for me, where I could have people round my house and cook gigantic, catastrophically organised dinners where the food arrived so late my dear friend Tony had to be scraped off the ceiling after drinking practically his entire bodyweight in red wine, and where I knew where the cool bars were and had Moses power on the door instead of being asked to pay at Dalston Superstore – I tell you, Dalston fucking Superstore! You have to PAY for Dalston fucking Superstore! – like a tourist and relying on my friends to leverage me in.

Further, I want other people’s babies to still be the same size they were when I last saw them, rather than so inconsiderately growing, and, given they have grown, I’d like them to recognise me, thank you very much, despite the fact that last time I saw them they weren’t really recognising much but boob and biscuits.

I rather suspect that Zac would have liked to know everyone at Fred’s 13th birthday party, too, rather than just a couple of the lads.

This general phenomenon is, I believe, caught under the catchall “Wants to have her cake and eat it too.”

I content myself with the notion that, after we’ve had a little gallivant around Europe, we can come back to Blighty and do some more catching up. Cos I’ll totally get it organised next time, right?

Temperatures approach the deadly heat of 30°C and we all stop complaining about it being cold and wet and start complaining about it being too fucking hot, and strip off our clothes with gay abandon and burn our wobbly bits to blisteredness, and sit outside the pubs chugging pints and wondering why our heads hurt.

Which isn’t to say that London isn’t fun. There are few places more fun, in fact, than London in one of its rare bright summers – where temperatures approach the deadly heat of 30°C and we all stop complaining about it being cold and wet and start complaining about it being too fucking hot, and strip off our clothes with gay abandon and burn our wobbly bits to blisteredness, and sit outside the pubs chugging pints and wondering why our heads hurt – even if the city has, as I remarked, had the temerity to change.

I mean, seriously. Between the Olympics and the Jubilee, Soho looks positively sanitised. And Soho is not supposed to be clean and freshly painted. Soho is supposed to look as grimy as you do when you stumble out of Dirtbox – yes, I’m sorry, I’m going back a bit here – in the wee hours of the day on an ecstasy and cider comedown looking almost, but not quite, as bad, as you do when you exit Trade (like I say, I’m going back a bit) at 3 in the afternoon, because after Dirtbox you just look a bit grimy and wide-eyed, and after Trade you look like someone just cheese-grated your face.

Anywise…. Everywhere in central London has been painted. There are enormous bloody great monstrous buildings where there used to be harmless old kiosks, and hoardings hide yet more shiny carbuncles that are changing the shape of my ugly but much adored metropolis.

I realise, in fact, how long we’ve been away when Zac’s Australian grandmother wants to take him to the cinema, and I go to buy a copy of Time Out, and the man at the newsstand takes pity on me and gives me his copy, because it’s a freesheet nowadays, and has been for donkey’s years.

And, further, when Zac can’t even see the film he wants because, despite having his mother – and his sodding grandmother — with him, it turns out The World’s End is rated 15 and therefore he can’t see it in the cinemas so should stick to illegally downloading it.

The Hunterian Museum is fab, by the way. You should visit. As is Hampton Court, and those riverside pubs.

And if you’re one of the many people I vaguely Facebooked and then failed to make a concrete arrangement with, I am very sorry, I hope we’re still friends, and I promise I’ll do it better next time.