Eish! London 10 - 11 July

Friday, 10 July
Office work is taking its toll as the days start to blend into each other. I’m finding myself in a bit of a strange situation, because I know I’m on contract and I have a lot to do before the end of September, but everyone else in the office has loads of time to chat and have all sorts of discussions. If I chat, I won’t get through the work; if I work, then I’m not participating in ‘the chat’ and I appear anti-social; after much contemplation I settled on getting the work done. Today was my first staff meeting and I reported back on the work I was doing on revamping the role plays for the Schemes. I asked everyone to send me an email on what role plays worked for them, and what they would suggest I include. Following on from my request, I sent out an email for everyone to reply to…no-one replied; and I was glad I had decided to get on with the work.

The happy note for the day was confirming a trip to Oxford to go and stay with an old high school friend, Bron, on her boyfriend’s houseboat! Rock-on the 25th of July!

Saturday, 11 July – Anna’s Farewell, Temple Road Walkabout Pub
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Mark Twain

Saying: “Good-bye and farewell,” seem to be a part of London life. I haven’t come across anyone who reckons they would be happy to live in London for the rest of their life. Everyone seems to be aspiring for more. The thought that few people are here for very long makes me realise that my stay is going to be temporary too; I’m not the sort of person who will be able to wander indefinitely, or continually say goodbye to friends. Still, I surprised myself at being upset that Anna was leaving. She is one of those people who have an enthusiastic magical energy about them; the ones who, even if you only meet them briefly, will never fail to leave some of their magic in your memory, and inspiration for the tougher times ahead.

This wasn’t Anna’s first time in London; she had been here about 10 years ago when she first qualified as a teacher. She said that she would love to keep travelling, but it wasn’t viable anymore. The last time she was here she managed to live and travel and save off her supply teaching income. This time round she said that living expenses had increased by a large percent and the supply wages had hardly increased at all, so she had hardly managed to save anything. She was going back to supply in Australia and then hopefully she could get a long term teaching post settle down. She was going to be staying with her brother and I seemed happy to be going back to family. I know many people say that home is ‘where you make it’, or ‘where you hang your hat’, but I’m learning with each encounter that I think I believe that home is where family is…

Being Anna’s event, the evening was full of laughter and drinking and dancing. Natt had a brilliant time as she attracted so much male attention that we had to fend them off! Infuriatingly, as my luck would have it, my shoe broke and the heel and sole half-disconnected themselves from my left shoe. I was devastated as we had been waxing that dance floor with all the celebratory-last-chance-to-do-this energy we could find, and the band was playing brilliant tunes, including a great tribute mix to Michael Jackson. I hobbled up the stairs to all the coats and umbrellas at our table; feeling sorry for myself, yet not able to stop shaking my rear, I hovered over the balcony longingly, not really paying attention to much amidst the bustle of people gyrating to loud music. Then this voice pulls me from my reverie,
“So why aren’t you on the dance floor with your great moves?” It was one of Anna’s really cute touch rugby friends. A New Zealander, if I got the accent right.
I’m sure my face looked forlorn and miserable; I looked at my heel as I raised it to my bum: “Broken my heel.” I didn’t want to talk about it so I moved back and sat in the booth amongst the coats. He looked at me, laughed and shook his head. Then he came forward to look at my shoe: “That won’t do,” He said.
I’m thinking: What is this guy up to? As he proceeded to take off his shoes and hand them to me!
“You can’t be serious,” I said looking into his laughing eyes, completely taken off sides. He appeared to be very serious as he bent down to take my shoes off. I recoiled, partly fascinated and amused, and partly weirded out. What do you do in this situation?
He looks at me: “Ok, you do it then.” He held out his shoes out to me.
“No way!” I look at him aghast, “I can’t wear your shoes.”
“Why not? You want to dance and you need shoes. I’m not dancing, so I don’t need shoes.” He said in a very sensible, straight forward manner.
That seemed logical enough, but his feet were bigger than mine and never mind the hygiene. Gross. It was ludicrous. Then an awesome song came on, ah man!
“Go on,” He winked at me. Done deal! I put his shoes on, left mine near the coats, gave him a huge hug and ran down the stairs to join an exuberant Natt and contentedly happy Anna as I learnt about the challenges of dancing in someone else’s shoes.

The clock, always the clock, struck late. My last train was a few minutes away. I gave Anna a big hug and best wishes as she was trailing after Natt, who was trailing after another hottie. I went back up the stairs to get my stuff. Back in my broken heels, I went to the touch rugby player and stood next to him to return his shoes. I wanted to kiss him thank-you, I wanted to take his number, I wanted to learn about what made those eyes sparkle, but the clock was ticking and I needed to make sure I got ‘home’ safely. He looked at me and smiled: “Did you enjoy your dancing?”
“Absolutely! Thank-you so much!” I could’ve kissed him then, I could’ve, but he’d put on his shoes and was facing the banister overlooking the dance floor with his head tilted in my direction. “I have to catch my train now, otherwise I won’t get home.”
“Oh, right,” he smiled, “Will you be ok with that shoe?”
“Yes,” I laughed, “I’ll have to manage.” I took a deep breath, best let sleeping dogs lie, he wasn’t really facing me anyway. “Thank-you so much.” I said honestly
He was still smiling as I hobbled away in resignation.