By this headline, I mean: Where is MY love for London? If you read my Cities are my Boyfriends post, you’ll know I’ve been struggling with my lifetime relationship with London. I’ve been born and bred here. I’ve had stints in different cities, like Norwich, and different countries, like Australia, but now I’ve been back in London for over one year (England for two) – and something’s not right.
The sky isn’t as blue (ha – because it’s London – get it?) and the grass seems greener on the other side. I know I love London – it’s unconditional – so I certainly don’t want to feel this way. And I’m certainly not going to get on some ranting high horse about the things wrong with London.
So what do you do when you’ve become unenamoured with your city? Well, I’m going to try and make an effort to fall back in love with London. Or rather, feel content with it again (because as my boyfriend pointed out to me: “you can’t force love, man”). If I was to leave the city – which I do see myself doing – I want to be comfortable and at peace with it; I don’t want to go on bad terms.
What I’m going to do is do a series of posts to document the London things I love, the things I find, and the things I reminisce. I think back on past memories from all over the world… but hardly ever my home city. It’s time to change that. I can’t promise it will always go to plan. I might have a particularly bad bust up with London, or feel ‘meh’ with it all – but the point of this is to get myself to try and find that sense of wonderment wherever I can, and report back when I do. Hopefully it’ll give you all a lift to find what’s in your own cities if you’re getting a little bored like me; or maybe you’ll want to visit London ;) (which I will always encourage).
First up is one part of summertime in London that I realised really makes me happy: gardens. I’ll stretch this out to parks too, but there’s something about a BBQ in the garden, sun shining, relaxing, drinking, family and/or friends, that’s soothing and makes for an excellent day to be overambitious with the bikini and get burnt.
These are my pictures that brought back the memories from family moments in my garden (or sometimes my sister’s) to picnics in parks with friends.
A lot of these pictures are from my Instagram – my account is here. Give me a follow :) Or not. Whatever.
Admittedly, some of these photos were in Spring… but I’ll let that pass as that’s when I start thinking of summer… or some other good excuse.
Because you’re no Brit without Pimm’s. No, seriously.
Regent’s Park
Picnics are always a good idea
My local park
London Eye peeking through in St James Park
Primrose Hill
Daffodils probably give this away as Spring… quickly, move on!
What’s summer without cats…? Right?
A little Shard in the background on Telegraph Hill
I feel this way every winter, but London & I kiss and make up when the sun shines!
Haha, summer definitely makes London so much more loveable!
I had to do this with the Hebrides when I first found myself back at home after living abroad. It’s amazing how much more you appreciate your home city/area if you try to see it through the eyes of a tourist. I hope you fall back in love (or at least like!) with London – looking forward to seeing how it goes :)
Good to know it’s happened to others! Exactly, and thank you – fingers crossed it goes well (commuting will only make this challenge harder!)