“My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you’re born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train’s pulled into Piccadilly Circus they’ve become a Londoner.” – Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

 

If you had said to me 5 years ago that I’d be living in Margate in a quiet back street I’d have laughed at you and said “No chance”.

My love affair with London is well documented, you only need to look at my Instagram feed and you will see years of photos documenting early morning appreciations of Tower Bridge, weekend strolls around the deserted streets of the city and busy meandering around Spitalfields and Brick Lane. Even this blog is named after a line from Tennyson’s poem about London.

The problem with London is that its not just a place that you live in. Its a place that lives in you, it gets into your skin, the dirt from the traffic, the dust from the streets and it works its way into your blood. When you visit you can go home, wash it all off you, get it out of your hair. But when you live there, its under the skin.

For me London is home, like a giant bed that I fall back into when I get off the train, I feel instantly at ease, welcomed. Expected. I don’t know why it happened, I didn’t move there til I was 30 and after living there for less than a year I was sure I would never live anywhere else. I belonged in London, London was mine. I felt more myself than I had ever done and every day was an adventure, there was even excitement in getting the underground somewhere. Before long I opted for bus travel, always sitting upstairs at the front with the best views.

But life changes, children happen and house prices sky rocket and you feel bad that your child will have to go to a school that hasn’t had a good OFSTED. In short priorities have to change, and my need to be within half an hour of east London at all times has had to go on the shelf. So we left, we sold our small two bedroom house in south London and bought a large three bed bungalow in Margate a 10 minute walk from the beach that my daughter has fallen so in love with. And I do love Margate. It has the same vibe as East London had 10 years ago, that feeling that something was changing, that the surge in art studios and vintage clothing shops meant that you knew there were like minded people living nearby.

When I think about it now Margate is probably the only place I could have moved to. Brighton, my favourite place to run away to, is just as expensive to live in as London, so we would have traded like for like, just with a seaside. But Margate has something about it, unexpected. I thought it was a dive when I first came here 10 years ago, but with the opening of the Turner Contemporary and Dreamland, and the countless independent shops in the Old Town, its really a very different place. And I like that I can walk along a very unassuming seaside street and come across the treasure of a cute café or shop.

London will always be a part of me, somewhere in the deepest parts of me I will always be there. I still wake from dreams of wandering her streets at night, no company but the passing cars and moonlight. There is no escape from that, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to change it.

So I have traded the city for the seaside, and I am very happy, when I walk along the beach I am grateful for big skies and fresh air, and that when my daughter asks to go to the beach it doesn’t mean 2 hours in the car before we hit sand.

But I have these last words to say to London…..my Dear John letter….

London I’m leaving you.

And it’s like the end of a relationship. Probably toxic, definitely expensive.

But my god I love you. In all the ways I know how and others I don’t understand. This affair has gone on for 10 years. And it’s an affair because you cheated on me everyday, you were rarely all mine, you were always so busy, with all the other people who are so in love with you.

Every day I’ve breathed you in, thrilled by being in your presence, overlooking your many faults just because I’m so blindly infatuated with you.

You take all my money, you leave me stranded in the rain when you randomly with hold buses. You leave me swearing at overly busy train stations with empty information boards. You offer me more than I can afford, and then give me so many freebies I get hooked again.

You are not just a city, you’re in my blood. When I’m not near you I miss you and all your dirty streets and overpriced bars. I just want to be with you all the time.

But it’s over.

We both know we will hook up again, I’ll come back and dizzy in your presence I’ll get drunk and stay the night.

And I can live with that.

But the day to day of us is over. I’m walking away.

What hurts is you won’t even notice I’m gone…..

All photos property of the author.