Friends Forever

I'm not quite sure what to do with myself....I'm off on an adventure independently and Tony's staying in Yorkshire. Me going off by myself is a pretty standard thing in our relationship in Aus; I love pursuing passions like my art camp or ashram stays and Tony heads off on his own adventures to see friends and kill things on the PlayStation. Our fierce independence is supported in our relationship and I think in all honesty, that is why our marriage is so fabulous.
However, I have spent every single day with Tony since mid January and considering it's now August, that's quite a few days. It is weird not having him with me as I jump on a bus and head to London.
I'm going to London, not to visit the queen, but to see my friend Lien, whom I worked with in Thailand. It's raining and the bus is late. I wander over to the man in information and ask him if he knows anything about why the bus to London is delayed. He starts laughing and says it's always late and since it's raining, it will be especially late. One time, it was seven hours late and no one bothered to tell them where it was so everyone just had to stand there and wait. I pull out my newly bought raincoat and prepare to get very cold and damp.
Luckily, the bus pulls up just as I've worked out how to get it out of its packable little pouch. It's full, smelly and I quickly scan the few remaining seats to try to take a pun on who would be best to sit next to. The front is taken so I'm left with the back, close to the toilet. Hmmmm. Could be grim so I choose the loveliest lady and clean up after the last person before I can manage to actually sit. Her name is Lisa and as luck would have it, she is a brilliant bus buddy. We soon start chatting away realising we've got teaching small children in common before moving onto transport,weather, our families and books. At one point, the lady behind us comments on how well we've gotten on, saying that as soon as she saw Lisa and then when she saw me, she knew we'd get on well. She's from Holland so the back of the bus is chatting up a storm now which is awesome! She said she always gets her children to sit next to females but that she's never met such friendly people. We move onto an observational discussion about characteristics of nationalities and decide Australians and the Dutch tend to say it how it is. We spend the afternoon chatting away, offering each other our food and I get a big bear hug from Lisa when she gets off the bus. She's asked to be my friend on Facebook and wants to stay in touch, I have found another Volmeister! The lady behind us adds that we'll be friends for life now and tell our children about the day we met on a bus. It was certainly lovely meeting her.
As it's raining, the traffic is horrendous so I'm nearly two hours late by the time I get to London. Lien is already there, organising us Oyster cards and sorting out maps whilst I whizz past the London Beatles shop, the Sherlock Holmes museum, Hyde park with its sculpture of a juggler balancing an elephant and Oxford street before finally meeting up with dear Lienny. We only get to see each other when she comes to Aus or if I am in the UK so it's been a good four years since we last saw each other and in true kindred spirit fashion, feels like we saw each other yesterday.
As our YHA is in the south, we decide to stay in the city and wander around for a bit grabbing dinner along the way. We pull out our two massive maps, nearly wallpapering a nearby construction site and head off in the vague direction of Soho. Immediately two beautiful white horses clip clop past pulling a white glass carriage. Very fairytaleish and very London. Passing Big Ben and the London Eye, shining their lights tantalising in the early evening, we continue along the Thames,entering into Trafalgar Square, the numerous west end theatres and Leicester square. Unsurprisingly, we are searching for a good Thai restaurant to settle down in and wandering through Chinatown for a while decide the best way to find a good thai place is to ask the local Thais.
We spot a Thai massage place and nervously walk up their beautiful wooden stairs dripping rain off our travellers raincoats. After getting some great suggestions off the ladyboy behind the counter, we head off finding a beautiful restaurant heaving with happy customers. Feeling slightly under dressed, we settle in and order some cracking food, catching up on the past few years in our lives. Determined to

understand London by buses, we jump on a route that passed close by our YHA and settled down for the night. A wonderful beginning to our little adventure.

Next day we head off to get breakfast in Maltby street market. Stopping to check we are heading in the right direction, the local lady points us in the direction and we put the map away deep in conversation. Maltby market is just setting up when we arrive and is a heady brew of gin joints, sizzling bacon, organic produce and raw cacao. I find an African fry up-English combined with Mozambique chilli sauce to produce the biggest (and best) burger I've eaten in a very long time. I warn Lien not to watch as I attempt to bite into it,

smiling as the delicious warm chilli sauce oozes through my fingers. We eat our brunch in an old brick warehouse that houses 1800's and 1900's floorboards set amongst the mismatch of old tables and chairs with cute bunches of hand picked flowers, there are forklifts, ladders, leftover tools and a sense that this is a space well utilised. As much as I try, I am unable to eat my massive burger however it has hit the spot and I don't feel hungry for the rest of the day.
We made friends with the lady serving us food and she told us about how to get to our next destination-Brixton. I share with her how I have never eaten Jamaican cuisine so she excitedly tells us how to catch a bus to check out this awesome area as well as explaining about Jamaican food and asking about travel. She's thinking about heading to Thailand; do we have any advice???!!! Do we ever!
As we leave, we push through the now heaving street bustling with posh young pretty things. Buying a coffee and some delicious raw chocolate we head off to try and find the bus. Jumping on, we ask the driver if he can tell us when we get close to the markets. A Jamaican lady hears where we want to go and immediately begins to chat. She knows exactly where it is and promises to tell us when our stop comes. I chat with her whilst she shares her stories of living and working in London before she ushers me to the back to grab a newly departed seat. True to her word, she shouts down to us 'Darlings!' when we reach the destination. The Jamaican bus driver chips in telling us if we quickly catch the bus in front of us, it will drop us right out the front of the markets. Waving them a quick goodbye and thanking them profusely, we make a run for it, managing to catch the bus. Yet another helpful Jamaican man points us in the right direction and we find ourselves in a very cool local Jamaican area. Fish heads rest amongst trays of seafood, next to fresh veggie stalls which are in turn located next to the butchers where the dead animals hang from hooks. We chat away to the locals, trying to work out what the different veggies are before exploring a local spice market. Finding packs of 'jerk' seasoning, I buy up a pack, eager to try it out when I get back to Yorkshire. Finding a narrow lane, we wander down it finding ourselves in a covered market arcade full of incredible shops. A

mix between local Jamaican cloth and cuisine, there is a definite posh undercurrent sweeping in. Vintage clothes sit amongst plastic wear and silver jewellery, with old butchers shops converted into modern funky kitchenware stores manned by a fat yellow tabby cat. We adore it and spend hours wandering up and down each section giggling over the evangelical crazy Christians and plastic Jesus shops next to the amazing wig collections. We've been going all day so stop for a late afternoon tea of green smoothie and coffee and then head back into the wilds of London.
This time, we're off to Brick Lane, famous for its Bengali and Indian heritage. Miraculously managing to find the correct bus route once again, feeling like

locals we swipe our Oyster and watch the world go by. Overhearing that we want to find 'Brick Lane' another friendly Londoner walks with us to personally show us the way to the street and I'm astounded by the incredible kindness and helpfulness the locals are affording us. I'm slowly falling in love with this wonderful city.
Spitalfields has a market on the way to Brick Lane so we meander through, comparing this swanky new purpose built covered market to that of the last eclectic Brixton one. There's some beautiful handmade babies clothes (not at all required by either of us but adorable nevertheless) loads of brand new 50's inspired party dresses and silk scarves. We feel much more at home when we get to Brick Lane, looked down on by the huge street art characters and old abandoned brewery. We find the worlds best vintage shop, filled with racks and racks of 70's pointed collars and incredibly loud floral prints. It takes all of my discipline not to purchase them all and I leave feeling like I've died and gone to vintage heaven. No store will ever match what I've experienced here. Stopping to snap photos of the colourful locals and the even brighter street art we walk past the hundreds of curry shops. Amazingly, every single one of them has won an award. Yep, every one of them. Every one also has a spruiker outside begging us in to taste their 'best' food so I quickly adopt my Moroccan answer.....patting my tummy and announcing I've just eaten and maybe later. Works a treat and I'm left alone. My tummy starts to ache after all the patting however!
Not quite hungry yet, we keep walking onto the old notorious slum area of Shoreditch which has now been turned into the latest hipster place to party. We walk past an old pub and there's three Jamaican bouncers watching the world go by. The pub is interesting as its set a long way back and I stop to check it out. Just as I do that, the lady bouncer encourages me in. I decline so she follows it up with a speedy 'But there's free beer!' Stopping dead in my tracks I ask incredulously 'Really?' She laughs and says no and I warn her to never say that again to an Australian or she could be met with a stampede. Giggling, she offers to buy me one and I politely decline but start up a chat about her being the worlds best bouncer. Who would ever start a fight when you have this amazing smiley lady chatting to you? She tells me about her family that's visited Sydney and we soon become friends. She waves us goodbye with her gold tooth gleaming at us in her incredible smile. We soon become aware of a thriving new area, full of pop up boutique fashion and a pumping bar above us. This is because a ping

pong ball has just bounced in front of us we are trying to throw it back up to the intoxicated man who lost it. This new area is called 'Boxpark' and it has shipping containers revamped into a groovy new hipster paradise. With the bottom containers laid vertical and the second level laid horizontal, we walk up the wooden stairs tacked on to find ourselves in an incredible area. Each shipping container houses a pop up restaurant with a theme- Jamaican, Italian, Burgers and Vegan surrounded by decadent cocktail bars and minimalistic beer stops. Noticing a fusion of Thai and vegan, this modern twist gets our tick and we settle down to do some serious people watching. There's a four year old boy who has fallen in love

with the man serving us veggies who runs behind the counter to hug and kiss him. There's another lady covered in 80's designer plastic jewellery and a long haired hippie who's wearing John Lennon style circular glasses. We listen to the various English accents around us as we gobble down our delicious food, surrounded in a warm and happy glow of this thumping temporary environment. We're reminded that cities never stop changing and never stop evolving which makes them an exciting place to be a part of. I think I'd like to live here for a while.
It turns dark and cold so we begin our way home via Petticoat Lane and it's beautiful restaurants and take a bus over Tower Bridge. The Tower of London is lit up beautifully and it looks incredible. I try to snap some photos out of the bus window - watching these iconic sights slide past is a great way to see the city. Another horse drawn carriage clops by before I have a sneaky beer at the backpackers surrounded by enthusiastic German school kids and I'm tucked into bed after another super day with Lien.

Sunday is our last day together and we toss up what we'd both like to do. Notting Hill is tempting, but as it's a reasonable distance to travel, we decide to walk along the Thames back into the city. London has put on its very best summer weather for us and the blue sky is warm and inviting. Walking though housing estates and old mills, we go past Brunel's museum where the pump house was built for the first underground tunnel beneath the Thames. Truly incredible in his engineering, Tony and I used to admire his suspension bridge in Bristol and as the museum is only open Monday, I'll have to resort to google to learn more about his feats. Snuggled up next to it however is a sweet little communal garden for the local estate. They've built an outdoor bar and have a fire pit and rustic chairs. It's great to see so many lively areas where people come to meet and connect. I wish there were more spaces in Sydney like this!
Continuing along Rotherhithe, we find some bronze sculptures honouring some locals that made a real difference in the lives of the working women who had jobs in the factories. Ada Salter and her

husband Dr Salter were effectively pioneers in bringing health and work standards to the area as well as insisting upon public green spaces and community facilities. As they lived amongst the people, sadly their only daughter died of scarlet fever so the sculptures are a memorial to their work but also the memory of their child.
We continue walking towards the Tower of London and Tower Bridge and note that the few locals that had been jogging past us is now being replaced with hoards of tourists. We spot a sunny restaurant by the Thames and settle in for a massive English breakfast. Well, I did at least, Lien was sensible. My brekkie ended up being so massive that after eating a piece of bacon, two eggs, a sausage, tomato and some black pudding and baked beans, I still had a

piece of sourdough toast, another sausage and a piece of bacon left over. Hello bus food!
Walking over the Tower Bridge is always a wonderful feeling-even with hundreds of pushy tourists and their selfish sticks. London has so much to see, I need to come back and stay longer! Walking through the city it's nearly time for me to catch the one and only bus back to Harrogate so we jump on the tube and head to Victoria station. We get our Oyster cards refunded, managing only to pay £9 for all of our travel this weekend and Lien leads the way as I power walk to the departure section of National Express. With ten minutes to spare, the bus is ready and with a quick goodbye to Lien we promise to catch up a bit sooner next time. I have a smile on my face and a happy loving heart as I wave her goodbye. London has been incredible and I've loved catching up with my dear friend Lien as well as making many new ones along the way. What a wonderful weekend of treasured memories!