Conker Season

One of the lovely things about being in London is a real and proper fall. The weather turns, the leaves start to fall and conkers arrive! Conkers?! What are conkers?! Well conkers are actually horse-chestnuts, or rather a game that all children in the British Isles grew up playing called conkers. It's a fairly simple game with two players. Each player finds a chestnut and ties it to a bit of string. Then the players square off and smack the hell out of each other's chestnuts 'til one of them breaks...and thus the player with the surviving chestnut becomes the reigning conker-er!

The path pictured above is part of my walk to Uni. It is a veritable conker ally.

For me chestnuts always bring up childhood memories of Vienna. There, chestnuts or konkers are known as Kastanien or if they are the edible kind of chestnut (you know the ones we sing about at Christmas time) they are known as Maroni. I use to love picking up the glossy shiny (shiny in a very earthy not plasticy way) chestnuts on my walk to kindergarten with my dad through the Schönbrunn Palace gardens and I can still hear the street vendors shouting "heisse Maroni!!" (hot roasted chestnuts!)

Ah fall...I have missed you...

I couldn't resist getting up close and personal.

West End Girl (for the moment at least!)

I really should have titled this Art in Derelict Spaces. However, since I will, for one month only, be a West End girl I figured I may as well use the title while I can! :-)

Art in derelict spaces refers to the beginning of my weekend. A boy, whom I have never met, though exchanged pleasantries with on Facebook, invited me to check out a theater (or rather I should say theatre) or really more a theatrical/performance art event taking place in an abandon building in the West End. Since I haven't as of yet established a tribe of friends here in London, being at loose ends on a Friday evening I thought I'd check it out....the fact that said boy was going to be in pants (that's underwear in American) and was rather cute was just a bonus!

So armed with a map in my head and dressed in my pinstripe fire pants (and I mean American pants this time, not British pants...oh the pants are making this all confusing!...typical) I headed out into the West End to check out the event. After one slightly wrong turn I managed to find the place, only to find it was 7 quid to get in and then money to "tip" the various events. Back out the door to find a cash point (aka ATM)...at this point I began to question the point of my quest! Why was I going out? To an event with potentially awkward situations, involving odd avante garde theater occurring in front of an audience of two? (where I would be #2) Without a wingman? Solo? ...but I said to myself, "right, Heidi! Don't be a mouse, what's the worst that could happen?!!" (and I didn't allow myself to answer that question)

Cash in hand and back through the door...I wandered down a few hallways searching for something to see...closed doors and theater in progress. At one door they asked if I wanted to play a game. "What kind of game?" I asked cagily. The reply was suitably vague...in for a penny...

The night unfolded in vignettes. The "game" was...confusing, but amusing. The bar area and "live stage" confirmed my nonexistent-audience fears. The "casino" was typically avante garde. The "puppet poker" was fantasic...but I never found the boy in the pants. All too soon the evening was over and I had hardly seen all there was on offer. A quick chat at the bar with an actor from the "game", then out into the night, into the West End...with the boy in his pants nowhere to be scene or rather seen...maybe he was putting on his pants?!

Venetian mask shopping in South Kensington

I've decided to focus on fun, rather than writing about the many horrible and overpriced bedsits I have view over the last week. So, on Saturday I sent a text to "Sam"* to see if we could meet up for a coffee or a drink. I needed a break from the home search and knew that Sam was always good for a cheery chat.

A couple of texts later and Bob's your uncle...we were on.

A quick change of plans later and I was drafted to help Sam pick out masks and capes for him and his friend to go to an Eyes Wide Shut type of party....hmmmm...

A (somewhat) quick drive through the rabbity roads of London (in Sam's rather posh car) and we were at the most insane costume shop I've ever been to! I so wish I had pictures to share but alas, no camera. The tiny aisles were so jammed with with costumes (all the way up to the ceiling in toppling towers) that it was like you were being attacked by wigs and hats and bags of tarty girl costumes. Are you picturing a big box type store? Well forget that. The aisles went upstairs, then down, around corners and on and on and on! It was totally amazing...and very English.

Lots of banter followed, with me attempting persuade Sam to go for the most wild of the Venetian masks and him (of course) going for the basic black.

...I'm a long way from "Burner" LA...

The afternoon rounded off nicely with a light dinner at a lovely little bistro in South Kensington.

*names changed to protect the not so innocent!

Jet Lag and Taxi Cabs

You always forget how nutty jet lag is. It's as if you've spent a weekend in Vegas unsyncing your body clock to the point where you're just silly tired, at all the wrong times.

On arriving in London, you top off your two flights (and extra long layover) with customs and some baggage wrangling...but then you step out into the crisp (way too early) morning air and a black cab pulls up. Out hops a South London cabbie, who calls you "luv" and proceeds to tell you all about his holiday with "the missus" in Cypress. The Tuesday morning rush hour traffic is slower than cold maple syrup poured through cheesecloth. It's worse than usual. "Strikes on the tube" the cabbie tells you.

You arrive at your street corner destination and pay the man a whopping £80 (roughly $120) while apologizing for the 80p (buck twenty-five) tip...it's all the cash you have. With a cheerful "not to worry luv" he's off and you're on to your first "proper" cuppa (cup of tea). Sleep is only a blissful 14 hours away...

Procrastination 101

I am tired of packing and unpacking and repacking and generally boxing up some areas of my life.

While I sit here, in a forest of boxes, I seem to be walleyed. One eye looking back at what I've left behind and the other looking forward to what lies ahead. I'm beginning to feel it... not homesickness but people-sickness. I miss my lovely LA "family" and while I know I'm on the right path and I will meet new people and extend my London "family"...right now it just kind of sucks :-( So before I go all maudlin on y'all. I'll leave you with my "stolen" goodbye words!

The Parting Glass (High Kings version)

Of all the money that e'er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm I've ever done,
alas it was to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit
to mem'ry now I can't recall;
So fill to me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be to you all.

[So] fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

Of all the comrades that e'er I had,
They're sorry for my going away.
And all my sweethearts that e'er I had,
They'd wish me one more day to stay.
But since it fell unto my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call,
Good night and joy be to you all.

Fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all!

Slainte!!! to you all! xx