Week One

So officially one week in now, well maybe just over a week. I'm not going to lie. Its been utter hell.

The job situation is the pits. One realises that whilst residing in London, we seem to be cared for by some Mother Nature esque character who ladles us with convenient resources so we never have to worry. We are able to get from A to B with a canny use of the capital's frequent bus service. We are always able to find a source of income - whether it be via a few shifts at the ale house at the end of the road to sticking envelopes for some godforsaken charitable organisation that, with the best will in the world, we don't give a fuck about... and all the while we are destined to carry this big bag of dreams around with us in the hope that one day the promise of the big city will give us a use for them.

Here, however, there is no such promise. You are stripped bare. Dreams are for the overly ambitious, work is something you do to survive - there is not really a purpose tacked onto it for good measure, talk is honest: direct. A spade is a spade and not some "gardening implement" that, when past its sell by date, can be painted, decorated and then deemed kitsch or retro. 

I have wondered around this town feeling totally lost for ten days now. What am I doing here? Why did I come here? What skills am I equipped with to get through this experience? Where am I going and how long will it take me to get there? I have been a victim of London thinking - the need to make a sense of my life and not to just LIVE it.

Tonight I went for an interview at the local gay bar; a reliable outlet that might give me some pocket change. Its only open twice a week in the vain hope that, in time, it will prove more popular to the gay week demographic. After that, I was set to meet a date - someone I had met on Grindr. Oh yes. I swore off Grindr in London - the prospect of some over zealous pervert being only 100 metres away was not one that I held dear. Here, its a necessity if you are to meet anyone who loves his mother within an acceptable public transportable region. 

The date: My knight in shining armour. A total no nonsense, straight down the line teetotal Gloucestershire resident. An absolute dream. When asked where we should go, his response: "Here if you want a bit of class, there if you don't". Sorted.

And after thirty minutes of his sage, down-to-Earth, West Country realism: "Gloucestershire isn't half as gangster as it thinks it is. Bite back at them and they'll shit 'emselves", we were graced with the presence of a half cut, fake bosomed dental nurse who shall remain nameless. Her first words to him were: "Your mates fucking fit in' he?"

Words I had been waiting thirteen years to hear in London. And after languishing in this compliment for a few moments, I heard next "Oooh, I love piercings. In fact; I've got me ears done, me belly button, me nose" and her crowning glory: "Oh, and me fanny!"

The stuff of legends.

Where I would normally be five pints in and making a complete tit of myself in our fair capital, I was three beers down, feeling suitably merry and had made two friends who I trusted implicitly. No need to prove anything, just to be me and confident that my new compadres were enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying theirs.

For the first time in ten days, I realised that it was in London that I had felt lost.