Escaping London

Big Ben

Yes, folks - I've done it.

After nearly 15 months of commuting 3+ hours per day into central London I have left that life behind. You cannot imagine the relief.

I decided to leave my job back in January and should have finished up at the end of March, however I agreed to extend my contract a couple of times to allow my replacement to be recruited and security cleared before I left.

The timing ended up being fairly fortuitous as my Dad passed away in Sydney in early May, and we delayed the funeral until the last week of May to allow my brother to return from an overseas trip, which in turn meant I could finish up at work and then head to Australia without the pressure of having to return to a stressful and exhausting backlog of work. Life often has strange symmetry. 

Waterloo Station. Where I seem to have spent a significant amount of my life in the past 15 months

One of the subterranean pedestrian walkways that lead from Waterloo Station to Waterloo Bridge

The throng. Ah, the hours I've spent staring up at the Waterloo departure boards...

Waterloo Sunset.
No, Ray Davies - I am NOT in Paradise.

Platform 2 at Waterloo.
Pick the visiting Aussie amongst the smartly-dressed Londoners with their appropriate attire for a chilly autumn morning

Of course this means that I am now unemployed and the prospect of searching for a new job does not fill me with glee. 

I'm hoping to find something within a 30-minute drive, walk or commute from home but the reality is that any such job will be very poorly paid. You really need to work in the centre of London to find anything that pays a decent salary - at least compared to the wages in Australia.

If I could find a job that only required me to commute into London three days a week, that's a compromise I'd be prepared to make. 

Anyway, there have been fleeting moments over the last 15 months when I have enjoyed being in one of the world's great cities, and some of the following photos I hope capture that spirit. 

Somerset House - just across the street from my workplace

St Paul's Cathedral at night - just up the road from the office

Billboard near Waterloo Bridge :-)

Spooky heavy fog - buses driving into oblivion!

Summer shenanigans at Southbank, London Eye in the background

Pink winter light just before sunset
- on Waterloo Bridge with a skyline of St Paul's the Shard, the Walkie Talkie and OXO Tower

Strand Station, right opposite Australia House - this tube station, once part of the Piccadilly Line, was closed in 1994

One of our favourite vegetarian restaurants - Mildred's in Soho

Beautiful, grand, elegant - Bush House is opposite Australia House

The portico at Bush House

Covent Garden, less than ten minutes' walk from the office

Christmas lights on the Strand, December 2015

Christmas ice skating at Somerset House

Buddhist monks amongst the tourist throng near Westminster

The Shard, viewed from London Bridge railway station.
That particular morning set a new personal commuting record - 2 hours & 25 minutes
from Epsom to Australia House, due to stuffed-up trains

Living in a London borough has afforded me several musical opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have had.
This is Gary Numan sizzling on stage in October 2015 - an incredible gig

Amazing light show as part of Gary Numan's Telekon concert

The ridiculously talented Patrick Wolf (one of my favourite musicians), onstage at the Islington Academy in May 2016

Exploring the Seven Dials area, on one of the rare occasions I actually had the energy to do so after work. 
This is Neal's Yard

Hotel Chocolat's School of Chocolate, where you can learn to make chocolate in the appealingly-named Cocoa Vaults

City lights on the Thames as night falls

Despite the occasional enjoyable experience, I won't miss working in London one jot. Yes, it's incredibly interesting and diverse and chock-full of lovely buildings but it's also incredibly bad for your health - the air quality is so bad that this year several parts of London broke their annual N2O (nitrous oxide) limits within the first couple of weeks of January. London is acknowledged to have possibly the worst N2O problem in the world.

I also won't miss the ridiculously overpriced public transport costs and the unreliability of the rail networks particularly.

So it's onwards and upwards - wish me luck in finding my next paid employment... hopefully here in leafy Surrey.


 Until next time,
- Maree  xo