We've got a little bit more than a month on our contract left for the Harpenden flat (sublet for the Olympics anyone?), but the time has come to escape the country and return to the Metropolis. Our house is still a building site, but we're only a couple of weeks away from leaving for Edinburgh and we had the chance to do a couple of trips back and forth today to move our stuff. It was a lot easier coming back than it was leaving in the first place, but then I was on tour and we were planning a wedding then too.
We will have to return to clean up the flat and pick up my bike (maybe I should cycle home), but then we will be bidding Harpenden adieu. I don't think we'll be missed, but if the Queen has another jubilee then at least we'll always be welcome at the street parties... oh.
I did make one new friend, but as he was a dead crow who has pretty much disintegrated it's probably time to move on.
Even though the house is dusty and largely uninhabitable I think we're both glad to be back. We'll have to wait until September in order to enjoy it in all its glory, but after tonight's gig in Chiswick I had just a seven minute drive and was back on my bed drinking warm white wine with my wife, rather than heading up towards the M1.
It's been an interesting experiment living out of town, but it's one that has convinced us that for the short-term at least, we want to live in the city. Where popping out for a pint of milk doesn't involve getting in the car or checking that the time is right for the shops to be open.
Last night I had talked to a very tired and former party animal comedian with two young kids who lives 90 minutes out of town. It made it difficult to come in and do gigs or just have fun with his friends. I can see the positive side of living in the countryside if you have a family, but the isolation can be tough too. London is stuck with me for a few years yet I think. This might be where I lay down to die. My bones will be buried under the soil of this horrible, stinking, putrid, beautiful city. I am no party animal, but I'd rather be on my own with millions of people around me and a Tesco Express that I can buy a horrible sandwich from for my dinner because there's nowhere to cook and no time for a takeaway!
But today was a time to realise which things we had brought in error to the flat - I think the soup maker blender was probably the worst one. It is pretty bulky and it just spent five months sat at the back of a cupboard, before we then took it out and took it home again. But there were a few little surprises like that waiting in drawers and cupboards. And the awful task of unloading these boxes and the ones with all our other possessions still remains as a post-Fringe treat. I am planning on taking September off, but imagine that most of the month will be taken up with putting everything back in its correct place. You know when I am not playing snooker against myself in the new improved snooker arena.
But maybe we'd all be a bit more stream-lined with possessions if we were forced to move everything 35 miles every five months. I think the soup maker might not end up making too many trips. It's this more than anything that probably will force us to stay in London - the idea of packing and moving everything again once it's set up will be too much to bear. The soup maker may stay in the back of a cupboard and never get used, but that's fine. As long as we don't have to transport it and feel the guilt of looking at it knowing we haven't been playing with it then that's OK. I want to be buried with the soup maker, just so that whoever carries my coffin has the trouble of transporting it, but then ensuring no one has to move it again. Plus it will really screw with future archaeologists, which is always fun.
Good to be home. Though tellingly, once again, though exhausted from a day of carrying and gigging I couldn't get to sleep in these strange surroundings.
