Scrapbooking Summer

While uploading pictures on facebook, twitter or instagram is a great way to share photographs and memories, I never feel like they satisfy or give such special memories the attention they deserve. Sure, for the half an hour you flick through this album (and the hours that follow while the people in the photos comment on them) the memories are kept alive, celebrated, and sometimes mocked. But until a few years later when someone decides to rustle up an awful image of you looking windswept with a grimace on your face, it is rare that you look upon these memories with the same fondness. It's onto the next album, and the next, and the next... and all these precious times become dust as the present excitement ensues.

This summer was hugely special to me: I finished school, had my first holiday alone with a friend (where else but Disneyland?), volunteered for four weeks of it, and generally tasted independence in a way which I hadn't before. I celebrated the end of this routine that I had inhabited for the last 7 years with friends in the form of a ball (fancy gowns and aching feet included), went to Wimbledon for the first time, met up with the CU to pray for the year ahead, and watched a youth leader I love get married. It was a pretty exciting time because I knew that the future was just ahead of me and all my friends, and I had no idea what was coming next. At the same time I was trying to do all I could with my time as well as spending time with my family before making the move to London, and making the most of time spent without the pressures of work or study. It felt wrong to document these things on facebook albums that will only hide away, and not to give these memories the attention they deserve.

So for the first time, I gave scrapbooking a go. And after spending hours in my free time on weekends making it, I have (in mid-November) completed it. Not only has it been fulfilling my inner crafty side that has been itching to come out since I dropped Art after AS Levels, but it gave me an opportunity to reflect on the opportunities I had, the friends I made, the laughs I had forgotten about in the blur of my new life in London. It made me smile on the Saturdays when I was feeling tired and, while my housemates were out with friends, pretty lonesome.

Here are some pictures! (and by some I mean pretty much most of the book, but with a few left out - I still wish to surprise my friends when I see them at Christmas..)

One of my favourite things about scrapbooking was getting to use up all the leaflets and pamphlets from Wimbledon and Disneyland in order to make backgrounds and decorate the pages without them wasting away in a box somewhere, or on a pinboard where they are bound to rip and get all dog-eared!

I took my disposable camera with me to Disneyland, and while not many of the photographs were useable (getting tourists to take photos on something so outdated is not the most reliable thing!), I love the way that this photograph turned out, with all the random colour filters contrasting with the grey sky. It pretty much emulates our over-excited mood of the magic of Disney in spite of the weather!

I edited these photographs before having them printed - I just love how this page is like a little momento to the old photographs taken of Disneyland before there was colour photo, and is a particular highlight of the book for me. I like having the courtesy photographs against the old-style 'shoppe' background and the man with the tophat, as well as the old car against the palace. 

The light show was so spectacular that I had to restrain myself from putting all the photos in the book - in the end only three made it and had individual pages so they could be shown off to their fullest, reflecting the fact that the light show was a real highlight of my whole summer (these captions are starting to get a little GCSE Art-like, aren't they?)

After the neat and prim nature of the Disney pages, UBM comes with 3 pictures on each page, all cut up and jagged and hidden by fancy cutting of the paper. It really was that hectic while I was there, I thought I would never recover from such exhaustion!

There are probably many different arty things I could say about this - how I used specific colours for the pages to reflect the photographs (the Wimbledon pages were all green and lilac, the Disney ones mainly pink!) or how I tried to match the mood or the nature of the event to the way I decorated, or the way I moved chronologically through the summer, or how I tried not to use the same patterns in two chronological pages so that each page was unique - but it would be pretty tiresome and take away from the fact that I made this to be kept, laughed at and loved for years to come. I even left pages to add more photographs to if I fancied!

Hope you have enjoyed this post - 'tis a little different to my normal rant-about-London style but I find that it's always nice to live vicariously through other peoples' memories.

-Antonia

P.S. All these photographs were taken on my HTC One. Not sure how the quality translates!

Two Month Review // October - November

It's that time again! Reading over last month's answers it seems like those experiences were so recent and I struggle to think of what else to add, yet as soon as I start typing my brain will go wild with all the things I have seen, felt, and experienced this past month. Today is the 9th, so exactly two months have passed since I moved in, and it was only a few weeks before I started calling this somewhat scraggy hostel 'home', but only in the last few days that I finally let my obsession with cleaning the kitchen and tidying go and really make this place - bolognese stained countertops and all - a home from home. 

I've decided that I'll add a new question each month, and considering the general theme of my introduction is regarding my new home, thought it apt that the question reflected that (it may also be a foretaste of a blog post that I hope to do later this month!)

The outside of my house from the third floor staircase of London City Mission HQ, where I have my lectures each Thursday. The house looks rather lovely from this angle, I must say! 

1) Weirdest thing you have seen in London this month?

I have recently been spotting, on frequent occasions, a lady who rides over Tower Bridge on a pink scooter. I have smiled at her, but she is a very focused commuter, looking straight ahead to her scootering goal at all times and never pausing from her rigorous scootering stance. However, this has been trumped by an incident that took place behind my home two nights ago, with the police and fire engines blocking off our whole road, Tower Bridge, and surrounding roads, diverting commuters away. My parents were stopping by after work for a coffee and we were told, en route to Starbucks, that there was a suspected explosion. My housemate was told an hour later that there was a fire, yet there was no sign of smoke or anything being romotely burnt. This carried on for many hours and security got tighter - I even struggled to get back to the house! My housemates went for a walk to see what was going on and got no further than down the road where there were about 15 firemen lined up against the wall waiting for orders, as well as fire engines, police vans and explosive experts with their experty things (lots of suspicious looking metal cases). We decided to play lookout on the small play area behind us rather than panic about the fact that they were not evacuating local residents to safeguard against injuries from this possible explosion: who said young adults weren't sensible? Regardless, there was no explosion, or even a fire, and I am wary about posting what we were told was going on because the policeman who told us was being extremely sarcastic and basically said "yeah it just needed some water sprinkling on it, and now it's all good" -  as if this potential explosive source just needed watering like a flower to stop it wilting. It doesn't necessarily count as 'weird', but it was too strange an occurrence not to share!

An image from near my house taken on the night of the explosion debacle - the large group of firemen aforementioned are on the far left, and the empty street (which heads on to London Bridge and would usually be awash with commuters) pretty much says it all, although this was taken towards the end of the drama.

2) Particular highlights of this month?
This month in our house was birthday month, with four of us having birthdays, which was a real opportunity for us to get to know each other better and basically spend time together that didn't involve watching a whole series of Miranda in one evening. Even by mid-October, it felt like the house had split somewhat because four of the girls worked together, and those of us working with London City Mission were together on Thursdays and had lived together for a week before any of the others moved in. We were all too tired from adjusting to our new jobs and schedules to bond late into the night and we had only a very basic knowledge of one another. When my birthday rolled around in early October, my fellow CV Emma made me a hunk of a chocolate cake with strawberries and the girls gave me chocolates, which was delicious and really made us feel more of a little community in the house, but by the time October ended there were three birthdays in the space of a week, so we celebrated with a meal out at Zizzi's on a Thursday evening, the only evening when it is pretty much guaranteed that we will all be together. It was such a lovely evening that had the potential to be horrifically awkward, but we chatted about our work, ourselves and had a good ole' chuckle. We then stepped outside onto the cobbled street (I do love a good cobbled street) and pretended that we were Mary Poppins, clicking our heels and taking photos like this:

As you can imagine, we looked beyond ridiculous. Excuse the picture quality, but for a stonker such as this, it had to be overlooked!

From L-R: Helen (LCM), Naomi (XLP), Me, Mair (XLP), Emma (LCM), Anna (XLP), Ruth (XLP)

My birthday cake!

One of the best birthday memories comes from the last birthday. My fellow LCM-er Helen and I decided to make a cake for Emma, since they has made mine together. In doubling the recipe, however, we added an extra egg and forgot to purchase baking powder, meaning a well-baked cake but with absolutely no rise! Forced to be creative, as well as hiding our cake concoction from Emma when she returned, Helen transferred the cake onto a round tray and took it hostage in my bedroom, where we proceeded to have a birthday card writing and cake decorating session for the next few hours. The rounded tray meant, however, that while the cake was cooling two of the corners were fragile. Our solution? Cut off those corners and make them into a kite. In fact, let's make the cake a work of art! Cue caramel waffles being placed on the cake, following my pink cream cheese and white chocolate icing  (a sunset, apparently), and marshmallow clouds. A cake fit for a (twenty) four year old!

Another major highlight was having some familiar faces coming to visit. While I love all the people I am meeting, it isn't quite the same as having your sister stay over and wander round London with her, or approaching a mentally ill man along the Thames with a friend from CU and offering him prayer, or asking strangers to take pictures with a Trevor the teddy. Those late night chats and film nights were so worth it and were just really comforting while my housemates were on their half term and the house was largely empty.

My sister wouldn't want her picture up on here, so here is one she took of me in front of the Houses and Parliament and Big Ben (which is actually the name of the bell but oh, well)

3) Favourite part of your work this month?

I would have to say meeting with local women in their homes - they have so much to teach us reserved Brits about hospitality. Seeing the other side of life and meeting with one particular woman who everyone else would despise - living off benefits (although not by her choice, she struggles to find work and is actually very intelligent), overweight, living in chaos and clutter - yet seeing the effort she goes to, buying us cake from her very little money and even giving us a huge three course meal because she wanted to show gratitude to us for bothering with her. Sometimes, that means gritting your teeth and drinking out of an unclean teacup or having tea without milk because she hasn't got any money left for it, or trying on her cloths that she wants to give you even though they're not to your taste. But I love it. I love seeing her curiosity about faith and her willingness to ask us questions and simply showing her the compassion that no one who lives near her has. It is an immense privilege, and is eroding my sense of entitlement. For that I am elated.

I am also enjoying my Monday Asda trips because when it is really sunny you get beautiful views of the docklands and Canary Wharf!

4) Least favourite part of your work this month?

Pretty much the same as last month. One week, I think I am getting the hang of things, and the next I am stuck in the kitchens chopping up salad and washing up so that everything I used to know just pops out of my head! I have also had a particularly clumsy week this week, knocking a tray of flapjacks off the counter onto the floor (losing the cafe money-wheey to go!), putting spoons in the bin and emptying cappuccinos into the bin, and then putting our order slips into the refrigerator instead of the milk. This was all topped off when I got home and microwaved some soup for myself and upon taking it out of the microwave, dropped it all over my left palm. Playing a clean version of "I have never" with frozen peas with Helen in A&E wasn't the best way I could have spent my fireworks night! I also struggled working Friday evening yesterday. It was rather disorientating and I didn't really know what was going on, and all the people I work with regularly weren't there. Hopefully I will get used to it!

5) Hardest part of your work this month?

I would have said the long hours, but these have been reduced - wahey! I would say, therefore, having the motivation to study alongside my work for my lectures. You really need to concentrate and often I find myself quite tired or, when I start, I realise after a few hours that nothing has gone in. It's weird juggling the two and putting so much physical energy into one and all your intellectual energy into the other and basically becoming a ball of exhaustion, hence having Saturdays as a 'resting day'. I have absolutely no idea how others play in bands or work as artists or illustrators alongside this job, or just go out and spend time being cultured in London. I know I need to get a better social balance but at the moment I am enjoying watching film after film each night.

6) Would you kindly sum your working month up in three alliterating words?

Creative, complex, clumsy.

7) Weird habits developed this month?

Still obsessed with cleaning the kitchen, but a more rewarding habit has been reading my Bible both morning and evening. I normally stick to morning and do a longer session, but doing both has been really useful and given me a little less strictness to my morning schedule, which I have enjoyed. 

8) What are you missing the most about home this month?

The boringness of Croydon. I didn't ever really feel guilty about not going out and staying at home when all you were greeted with was an overpriced cinema, shopping (which would have been less stressful online) and grey buildings against dull skies. Living in London, however, gives you this pressure to be more outgoing and extroverted and to cease all these opportunities that are in front of you - going to see a play, a gallery, trying new food, meeting new people and exploring all the city has to offer. Truth is, I would rather order a film off Amazon and spend my day with a tub of Ben and Jerry's because I am not cut out for spontaneity, but sensibility. Not to mention that I can't afford to be eating out, going to exhibitions and certainly not musicals! I spend my money (that I have been saving for the past year) treating myself to a nice shampoo from Lush that will last me six months, not a meal that will last me ten minutes. That being said, I have been for a few meals this month - just look at this corker from Las Iguanas, where my mum took my sister and I. Curry hemmed in by a shell of butternut squash with rosemary crumbled over the top - my tastebuds were having a party!

9) Best housemate moment?

There have been far too many in the past few weeks! The cake captivity debacle aside, I would have to say the evening this past thursday which involved singing Christmas songs in our worst singing voices, learning a dance routine, moaning, eating freddos (we were given a box of 60!) and watching series 3 of Miranda. We were also planning our house Christmas dinner and how we were going to decorate, which got us all extremely hyped up for the Christmas period, and not just because of the twinkling lights and presents, but for the singing of our favourite hymns and remembering the true meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it. 

Apologies for the length and somewhat dodgy photography - I have been too scared to take my big camera out too much so a lot of it is HTC One quality and a lot of cropping!

-Antonia

P.S. Many of these photos were taken from my Instagram

London: Community and Isolation

Walking through London has got me pondering rather deeply to the extent where I feel like I might be able to create a little series on my thoughts. My experience here has shown both the vitality and the cruelty of London, as well as how tourists get London so wrong. Indeed, how I until I moved here has such a warped perspective of London life. You hear of people longing to move to London to feel part of something, or to get a glittering job and meet creative people and live to the full. My experience has been somewhat redemptive of that fascination, but mostly telling the opposite. As much you walk the streets of London on a Friday evening and see mini communities of workers, you also see lonely wanderers. As much as in my work I have met creative people from painters and poets, I have outside of work also felt pangs of isolation and felt the burden of others' isolation who I have met on the estates or on visits.

So many people forget that London off the tourist trail is real life. It is messy, complicated, grievous, sad. I have met so many people in my work on an East London estate who, in spite of the supposed community that estates bring, know few people aside from immediate family, and spend their days alone. It's why the place I work at exists: to bring opportunity for community to these people who would otherwise be isolated and often without hope or even small comforts. I recently met a lady who is grossly overweight, yet has a neighbour who drives her around. This neighbour often comes into the cafe, and I marvelled at the small community and links of people that we has discovered upon in an 8 floor block of an estate. Yet, upon asking her whether she knew anyone else in her area, she knew of none. This is not a problem unique to central London, as I am well aware, but I suppose I wanted to quash those myths of the bright lights of London. Those general images of people meeting and becoming friends in the city of opportunity are catering to a small market of people who seek out those friendships in the nightlife, not the old-time Eastenders (not the telly programme) or the gap year students living off donations (ahem).

Which brings me to me. The inspiration for this post was mainly from my own impressions as I walked round London with not a soul beside me, over Tower Bridge with only hostile stares greeting me (even from the lady on her pink scooter who I smile at every morning!), and my weekends being spent inside my home because aside from those I had met at work, there was no one to meet with and experience London with that would quell the feeling of crippling isolation. For the first few weeks, my introverted self who thrived on studying and lack of human interaction aside from that through a laptop screen (and was completely comfortable with that!) was loving it. Nearly two months in, and I have had my fill. I find myself craving the community that school used to bring which had such an extended circle of people and friends of friends which I had readily available on weekdays. This is replaced by my work, but with everyone being at least six years older than me, with a degree or two, former jobs and massive life experiences under their belt, it seems a bit odd to treat them as I would those at school, who were in the same position as me. Where I work, I am very much the underling - this is entirely my own perception of the situation, and not how they make me feel. In fact, they have been nothing but welcoming, a very picture of the friendliness that helps the community cafe thrive.

This is the cafe where I am working. It has an open plan full of light, space, books, creativity. The sofas are large so that big groups of people, or small groups of people who came alone but started a conversation, can meet, build friendships, and build community.

It is the weekends that solidify these feelings of isolation. My housemates (of which there are six plus a family of four, but that is for a later blog post) essentially replace the 'family' side of my routine life for the past seven years: they are the people I come home to and cook with and watch telly with. But on weekends, they are out visiting their friends from former gap years or uni or school. I am the only one that has come straight from school with the majority of their friends scattered over the country, which means that I have spent many a Saturday quite alone, either walking London's streets, doing the tesco shop and laundry, reading, scrapbooking... but not exactly thriving off all the things that London has for me to do. I've made a huge list of things I wish to do while I have London on my doorstep, but no one to do it with. People ask me with enthusiasm to tell them all about my extravagant and wonderful life in London, but I have few stories that they would be interested in. I spend my evenings watching Bake Off (except that it has finished now... boo), not clubbing or at gallery openings or watching plays or taking part in a class (far too tired for that!).

This is the outside of the house where I am living. For stalking purposes, my room is the third window up on the left. Two two windows barely in view at the bottom are windows to our underground kitchen and lounge area, which is really where community gathers in our house. Yet there are many times when no one is there, and because we have a knocking and locking policy for our rooms, retreating to your room is isolating yourself from possible interaction. Indeed, because of all the crazy schedules of the six other girls I am living with, it can be days where I don't see some of them!

Perhaps this has been a little personal (oops!) and not as well communicated or as thoughtfully done as I would have liked, and makes me sounds rather sad and lonely. No, I a thoroughly enjoying my experience: I just crave that community in a big city was easier to find, or that maybe I would bother to look a bit harder for it.

-Antonia

P.S. Perhaps I will do a follow up on my thoughts around Christmas - this always seems to be a big time of community and we have some events at the cafe which I am really excited to organise and attend, as well as some house outings ice skating that I hope to arrange! Maybe as the year goes by, I will grow accustomed to it, or will make some new friends through church/fellowship groups/ a gym/ a class. I am not telling everybody that they are disillusioned just yet!