When I was a kid I had plans to head off to the big city and make my way as a writer.  I’d live in this leaky and yet some how cosy flat, with fifties decoration and an eccentric but loveable old couple next door who’s cat would sometimes poop in the hall but who were always smiling.  I’d be working for Smash Hits Magazine (obviously), interviewing popstars and wearing kookie clothes, and no one would mind that I was a little…different.

Except I was only that person inside my head.  In real life I didn’t believe enough to try.

But every time I go to London now I feel like that kid again.  Not in a bad way, but in a wide eyed, hopeful, entertained kind of way.  It makes me feel fresh, I suppose because it’s a place of discovery, and when you’ve lived one place your whole life there’s not always that much to discover, or you forget how to look.

One of the things I love most about the big smoke is the people.  Not the grumpy ones who bump into you and don’t seem to have learnt the words “Oh sorry, my bag just knocked your head a little askew.  Would you like me to summon a physician?”, but the others, you know, the ones you can’t help but see.

Like ‘Hat Man’, cleverly named because he stands on the platform of the Picadilly line wearing approximately 5 trilbys, all perched neatly one on top of the other in a surreal balancing act.  Varying in colour they draw the eye and raise such questions as:

• Why is that man wearing all those hats?
• Does he swap them round each day?
• Is one his thinking hat, one his dinner hat, one his clean out the rabbit hat and one his look really tall in a tube station hat?
• Does he know he’s got them on?
• Is he dangerous?
• Would it be wise to keep staring at him?

My favourite ‘people moment’ is the encounter with the big shoes and the tiny small man.

Again I’m standing on the edge of a platform on the Piccadilly line.  I don’t get into the first train with Hatman.  It is stuffed to bursting and I can’t quite face ‘oozing’ into the liquid mercurial mass.  Another tube is due in 5 minutes so I step back a little and wait.  Beside me there is a young emo couple.  Tall and broad in a mish mash of dark fabrics and textures, the girl stands to my left, her back margined by two long dark plaits.

To my right, there is a tiny, tiny business man.  Short and square in a navy pin striped suit, his eyes are rooted to a spot just in front of the yellow safety line.  I follow his gaze and see them.

The boots..

That’s why she’s so tall.  On emo girl’s feet are things that look a little like caterpillar boots, but with the most enormous soles ever.  Seriously, it looks like she’s sporting a couple of black shiny hovercrafts, a bit like the ones below but with a much wider platform.

I glance back at the tiny small man and he is still looking.

I check my watch, look again at the man and he’s STILL looking, and it’s then I see it, just behind his eyes.  Cogs are turning, pistons pumping and he’s thinking, “If I had them, I would be tall.”

His eyes widen slightly, then meet mine briefly and we both look away, but when I look back he is once more coveting the boots.

Sighhhh.  It was a moment.

Anyway, finally there is the enormous pigeon and the man dressed as a haddock that I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

You know, the post about honesty, integrity, and keeping it real?

Except, well, I didn’t.

I lied.

Because there was no giant pigeon, and nobody was dressed as a haddock, which is probably a good thing, otherwise the giant pigeon would undoubtedly have eaten the man sized haddock and that would have been unpleasant.

So you’ll forgive me right?  Because apart from that, I never lie.

Honest.

Which is why I will be completely truthful when I tell you that yesterday, as well as being interviewed by Shiny Red, I also got the chance to meet (though briefly) the very lovely and engaging and ‘not at all as feisty as she is on the telly’ Lowri Turner who freely admits to burning food, being scared of spiders and occasionally forgetting how many kids she is supposed to be picking up from school and therefore leaving one behind, (breathe), and, the fabulous team behind new ‘real Mums’ website Super Savvy Me, a site already featuring the writing of our very own yummy Mummy ‘Tara Sticky Fingers Cain’.

AND, I got to have lunch with one of my bezzie mates in the hold world ever Rosie Scribble , yummy Tara, a very slim and healthy looking  Single Parent Dad (who enthusiastically took home my Pampers Gift of Life parcel – it was yours Rosie, but then it was mine), lovely Tim from Bringing up Charlie (with Charlie), the fabulous Dulwich Divorcee, gorgeous Susanna aka A Modern Mother, twitterer extraordinaire Who’s the Mummy, and the wise and wonderful and very, very kind and lovely Potty Mummy.

There’s no wonder  I’m shattered really is there?  Sighhhhh.  And it’s 1am and I have to pack for a weekend away in Spain, and a few days in Scarborough, and for my girls two nights at Granny’s….and, and, that’s why I copied and pasted all your links Rosie.  In case they looked familiar.

See, honest.