london life

As ever, it has been some time since the last post. I always get really narked when someone whose blog I enjoy reading regularly leaves enormous gaps of time between posts...not that I'm assuming I exactly have a dedicated readership, but nonetheless I rue the hypocrisy.

Here's what happened since the last post in July. Briefly.

- I finished my Masters, finished work at Medical Foundation, handed over the flat, said goodbyes to our incredibly dear and wonderful friends in Manchester (all of this in the space of about three days) and headed south to join Andy.

- A few days later I started my job at an NHS-based refugee support service, and am loving it so far. Intensive practical and psychological support for survivors of trauma with Post Traumatic Stress. The contract is over in December, so watch this space...

- Andy has been sinking his teeth into his new job at Imagination, having just returned from a three-week beast of a photography event in Cologne. By the sounds of it, it was a bit of a trial by fire but he came through unsinged. Today he went to Amsterdam for the day, and I'm a little jealous of his jet-set life!

- We really and truly live in London now. In a small but utterly lovely flat near the Kennington Oval cricket ground, complete with creaky floorboards, high ceilings and somewhat volatile alcoholics living in the basement beneath us. Oh, and we have a really comfy sofa bed, so come stay with us. (we're pretty sure the aforementioned neighbours don't bite)

- We've been exploring what London has to offer, which is....well, a ton. Highlights so far include knitting squids a late opening at the Natural History Museum, an outdoor 'silent-cinema' event, complete with audience participation, catching up with southern-based friends and family, rooftop housewarming parties, digging up all manner of lovely little coffee shops and pubs, aerial acrobatic theatre on our anniversary...good times. Oh, and they have frozen yogurt here! Bliss.

My personal highlight as far as the city goes has to be exploring it on bike. I'm riding in earnest again now, commuting to work and exploring the outer reaches of the city on my days off. Above are two vistas of my daily commute, which takes me through three parks, over the Thames, past some palaces. I LOVE it. It took me a little while to get comfortable with the sheer mass of traffic (including cyclists - this is very much a biking town) but now that I'm used to it - and fluorescent - I'm in my element. Andy's just joined the bike hire scheme here too so we can explore together now too (albeit at the much slower pace of the hire-scheme bikes, which move about as fast as an arthritic cow).

Of course this is the rosy angle on the last few months. It's very easy to draw attention to the enormously fun stuff, but make no mistake -moving here IS a big change, and living in London is tough for the same reasons that big-city living anywhere is tough. It is very noisy, very crowded, very expensive, very far away from our dear northern friends. Thankfully, I feel like the sheer volume of creative, interesting and unique places and events that London has to offer goes a long way to ameliorate the less fun aspects of life in the big smoke.

Um, did I say this would be a brief update? Sorry. Expect many future posts to be about either a) biking or b) fun stuff in London or c) a combination of both. We're both in a honeymoon phase with the city and we really are loving getting to know its nooks and crannies as we venture into this next chapter of life.

London calling

Things are starting to feel a bit more real now. For the past few weeks the only real reminder that I'm on the precipice of change has been when I've found myself wondering why Andy isn't around; I then remember that he in fact lives and works in London now...

Still, none of it has felt tangible until recently. Firstly, we just found a flat and promptly secured a large enough loan to actually start renting it (painful memories of the rental market in NYC come flooding back). I've not seen it yet, but I trust in Andy's abilities to find us a little nook that will work for us. Last weekend I went down and we explored the area - around Oval - and for the first time I had a picture of what our new life would be like. Though close to the city, the area feels mellow with lots of cyclists, pubs, little parks and tucked away galleries, all of which bodes well.

We spent the day taking in the surrounding areas and I kept experiencing little waves of familiarity as I recognised a certain commonality of pace, eclecticism and energy of London with New York, and my oh my...it felt good. We found farmer's markets in Oval, hidden art galleries in Vauxhall, an incredible sandwich bar in Brixton, bona fide Cuban food in North Lambeth and an impressive free Brazilian festival at the Southbank Centre. We hung out by the Thames, watching tourists, musicians, performers, suits and hipsters going about their evening and I thought....yeah. I can do this. This can be my city.

I also now have a job to go to when I move! I interviewed yesterday for a role with a Refugee Trauma Service at the NHS providing therapeutic casework to refugees and asylum seekers, and got the job. It's part time, and only a short contract but it's a great first step and I'm THRILLED to have landed a role with the rather niche client group that I was really hoping to continue working with.

It feels like time is slipping through my fingers and this whole new life will start before I know it - a few more weeks of work, dissertation, and precious time with dear northern friends and then we take on a new chapter together in a new city. It's a bit bewildering, but exhilarating too and I can't wait to see what it brings...

sand prophets

On New Year's day 2010, Andy and I were strolling along a sunny beach in North Devon, trying to make sense of the year we were leaving behind and dreaming dreams of the year ahead. As well as feeling the importance of a certain 'carpe diem' factor in the year ahead, we found ourselves talking more and more about the idea of moving to London. This was in part because we've always known that's where the jobs are for Andy, and in part because both of us tend to get an itch to move on to new things every 2-3 years, and we had both begin to feel the biennial of winds change.

In what was probably a mixture of hubris and hope, we scrawled '2010 LONDON' in the sand. I think at the time the idea was more representative of our hope for change - to shake off 2009 and a certain feeling of inertia it had engendered, but now the action feels oddly prophetic of a new chapter for us both.

About a month ago, an incredible new job opportunity dropped out of the sky for Andy. Imagination called him up and offered him a job (it actually was almost that strange and simple) and it was just too good to pass up. Given that we have grown really fond of Manchester and especially its residents, we'd always said we would only make a move if there was a compelling reason, and this opportunity most definitely falls into that category. Challenge, creativity, travel, variety...the job itself holds a lot of good things for Andy, and a new adventure in London presses both of our buttons.

I've become convinced over the years that the heart is often prepped for the things that life will next bring it, so now it seems no coincidence that we both have been feeling the itch for a new chapter, and that I have - in the space of a few months - gone from loathing the very idea of London to chomping at the bit to see what a new life there holds for us.

I'm not unaware that the move will be bittersweet - we'll be leaving behind some incredibly dear and inspiring people in Manchester, and I know from New York that big-city living is taxing in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Nonetheless, a move to London feels timely and exciting; a new door which we'll step through together to see what happens!

Andy started his new job this week while I'm holding the fort up north for the summer, continuing my work at the Medical Foundation and on my dissertation to see out my Masters. It's funny, somehow just writing this blog post makes it all feel more real - so far I've had a vague sense that there should be someone else in my bed at night and the enormity of the change ahead hasn't sunk in. We've handed in our notice on our tenancy so by the end of August we'll be moving to southern climes...in the meantime, I'm grateful that my head still feels very much rooted in Manchester for now. I intend on soaking up all the great things about life up here while it continues! I kicked the summer off with a skydive and this weekend sees the wedding of a dear friend and a mini-festival to keep the good times rolling...

Vann-tastic

The Vann Clan has just expanded in a spectacularly wonderful and amazing way: world, meet Josiah Daniel, new member of the human race. 30 hours after hearing my sister-in-law had gone into labour we still had no news and so my folks and I decided to drive down south to the hospital to counter our feeling of inertia...we arrived just in time to see my brother walking out of the delivery ward, dazed and beaming at his newly-acquired status of 'dad'.

I am so, so grateful for the timing and the privilege of being the first to congratulate my brother, and to meet Josiah in his first hours in the world. Now I have to tell you, a bunch of friends and acquaintances have had babies and I find all of it very cute and heartwarming - I also have 2 awesome nephews who are older, but living overseas means I have sadly only met them a handful of times and didn't get to see them brand new. It's been fun watching people in my life grow their families, but something seriously hit home when I met Josiah. I felt something warm and deep shifting in my heart and even now I find myself regularly overcome with emotion about this new little person in the world.

Now I know what you're thinking - most people will put that down to broodiness, but I don't think it's quite that. I still have not reached the point in my practical or emotional life where I want to push one of these bad boys out myself, but this is the first time I've felt such a visceral connection to the whole process of creating new life. I've never seen a newborn, and I was floored at how perfect he is! A little perfectly formed person, ready to roll. I've never understood new life as a miracle more clearly than I did meeting him.

I think mostly I feel connected to the experience in part because Dave and Laura have been on a very long and and emotionally draining journey in trying to have a baby, and in part because Josiah is family - he's one of us, I'm connected to him and by extension feel responsible for him. As such, I'm determined to be his best aunt ever - I'm already hatching plans to teach him practical jokes to play on his mum and dad and take him rock climbing...

Blog-readers and facebook followers, prepare yourselves. I am seriously in love with this little dude and you can expect much gushing, picture-taking and sighing about him for many, many months to come. :)

Diving for Dosh

I've mentioned a few times in previous posts how much I'm enjoying my final MA placement with the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, so I'll make this post snappy. They are a national charity that provide counseling and medico-legal reports for survivors of torture and my time there so far has been eye-opening and challenging in many ways. The counsellors are extremely dedicated - most of them volunteers - and they work with clients often for years to help heal broken minds, broken bodies and broken spirits that have resulted from experiences of torture. I really believe in my colleagues and in the work that MF does and as such I'm taking part in a skydive on June 19th to help raise awareness of and money for the Medical Foundation to continue their amazing work.

Now that your awareness has been raised by reading this blog post, all I need is your money! Even £1 will help toward our goal and will be extremely gratefully appreciated by the whole team. And I promise I won't think you're stingy. Just click and donate!

www.justgiving.com/divefordosh

Being a participator

I love how when you get to know someone really well, you not only get to understand what makes them tick and what gets them fired up, but it rubs off on you and you start to get a taste for those things too. One thing I've been learning from Andy is how amazing, inspiring and often moving collective experiences can be. Andy gets such as buzz from creative, well-executed group experiences and the unique atmosphere that is generated in bringing people together on a big scale for a common purpose. He loves live shows, theatre, festivals, interactive public art, etc.

In the past month I've been having a LOT of fun participating in some collective experiences; each time it has been at a friend's suggestion and while I might not have (let's be honest) been proactive enough to bother getting involved off my own back, I am really not regretting saying yes to stuff that comes my way. Some highlights:

1. Games night at Tate Britain. That's right. My good pal Liz clocked the event and so we went down and stumbled into a crazy world of interactive fun for the evening! The gallery was open super late and the entire place was filled with group games: treasure hunts, parlour games, virtual reality sets, and the world's biggest pass-the-parcel, you name it. People of all ages were running around with balloons, fake moustaches, instruments...awesome.

2. Tweed Run. Less of a run, more of a cycle ride. Around London. In tweed. This was without a doubt one of the most fun days I have ever spent and it still brings a smile to my face just thinking about it. My friend Keith gave the heads up this time and we joined 400 others all dressed in tweed with flat caps, pipes, amazing facial hair, vintage bikes, etc for a 12 mile cycle around the best bits of central London. The sun was shining, and the atmosphere was simply wonderful - there was such a feeling of good will and jolly good fun about the whole thing. Strangers bonded over tips on moustache trimming, tea and sandwiches were served in the park, and the whole event ended with a good old knees-up with (free!) gin and tonic and a swing band. As if the day couldn't get any better, I even won an award for my moustache!

3. Spencer Tunick's 'Everyday People', Manchester. The artist known for his photographs of large groups of nude people was in Manchester this weekend and yours truly went along with some good pals and 500 others to get naked for the sake of public art. Organised by the Lowry and with the concept of recreating the themes of some of Lowry's paintings, we spent the (very early hours of the) morning in several locations in Manchester posing for Tunick. It was certainly a surreal (and sometimes chilly) experience, but totally magical and fun. Highlights included being serenaded by a drunk homeless man who must have thought he was hallucinating at coming around the corner to 500 naked people! Unperturbed, he approached one man and asked, "have you got any change?" :)

Hopefully 2010 will see me continuing to be more of a participator.

Long over-due updates!

I've been so slack at updating this thing...not for lack of things going on, probably more because there's been a lot happening! Stand by for a flurry of postings to bring you up to speed.

Let's start with a quick update: It's May. MAY!! How did that happen? Into month 5 of 2010 I can safely say that year is already shaping up to be so much better than the last. Andy and I are both working hard but also devoting as much time as possible to playing and dreaming and I'm loving that. I'm coming into my last weeks at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and still loving it. Working here has stretched my mind and heart and I'm really hoping to find work with asylum seekers and refugees once I finish my MA; I might save ruminations on this topic for another post. I'll talk your ear off if you're interested :)

We're both now job-hunting; while my MA doesn't finish until I hand in my dissertation in September, I'm looking for work once my placement is done and Andy is looking to use the financial freedom that might bring to leave Liverpool (hoorah!) and find more creative, fulfilling work - ideally in the city in which he lives for a change. Exciting times!

Come summer our lives are a blank canvas - it's kind of surreal but kind of exciting. We're open to moving to the bright lights and faster pace of London if there's interesting work there, but likewise open to getting jobs here in Manchester and rooting ourselves here for a while longer. Over the past few months we've simultaneously talked ourselves into a state of excitement about the idea of moving to London for a few fun and crazy years, and at the same come to understand what an awesome set of friends we have here in Manchester, not something we want to leave lightly.

All in all, it feels like we're in a good place. We're both working really hard but with an energy and an excitement about what is around the corner, most of it as yet unknown. So far I'm honouring my intentions to have 2010 be a year for living - I've been having some extremely fun adventures involving tweed, bicycles, fake moustaches and nude public art and have a skydive coming up next month...more on all that in following posts.

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new things for a new year

We've spent the past 2 weeks driving up and down the country seeing family and friends over Christmas and New Year... It's been good, and now we're both somewhat spent and looking forward to playing hermit for the rest of the month. (Apart from the Vann family Christmas next weekend...it never stops!) Despite being extremely grateful to see our own bed again, being able to simply get in a car and drive a few hours to see loved ones is still immensely satisfying and still feels somewhat novel.

Here's a few fun things that our trip included, aside from good time catching up with folk:
1. We took a day trip to London, as a Christmas gift from my parents, and spent the day bumbling around art galleries, coffee shops and cobbled streets and soaking up the vibe (and the rain) of London. As part of the day out we made a point to find Seizure, an art installation in a dilapidated council flat in Elephant & Castle into which the artist poured 70,000 litres of copper sulphate solution, creating an incredibly beautiful crystallized cave. Very blue. Very amazing. Very London.

2. We drove to a small village in North Devon and watched my very dear friend Josie get married to her life's love. The day was sunny and crisp and blue, and the bride didn't stop smiling once :)

3. On our way back, we went for an extremely bracing but beautiful walk along the beach at Woolacoombe, where Andy spent his childhood holidays. We shimmied down sand dunes, took pictures of our shadows and wrote dreams for a new year in the sand.

Here's to a year of new adventures...

Thanksgiving II

Last weekend we threw our second Thanksgiving feast for our northern friends, bringing some stateside tradition that we got love over to the UK. Thanksgiving is one holiday that I feel like I can really go in for - its all about sharing good food with family and friends, which in my books sounds like a pretty great combination. It feels weird and really good to be able to officially call something "our annual...(event)"; there's something about establishing traditions that makes you feel connected and rooted to a place and its people, which is something that I am slowly beginning to feel here.

It felt like an appropriate and timely celebration as well - near the end of what has been an often tough and bumpy year, I do feel so incredibly thankful for our lives here and the people in them. It was awesome to share a feast with the people that have seen us through our first year of transition to Manchester and in a small way return the favour!

We chowed our way through an enormous turkey (that had a very happy life!), homemade stuffing, candied yams, bacon-beans, mash, creamed corn, apple cabbage...and after a break which included a quiz (do you know how fast a wild turkey can fly?), we went on to a dessert of mostly pies: pecan, apple, cherry and of course the star - pumpkin pie! (Thanks to Sarah who smuggled a can through from the US last summer!).

It was a great day, and are still working our way through the leftovers...We're looking forward to carrying on the tradition every year, connecting past traditions with friends we meet and walk with on our journey...

Happy Thanksgiving!