Home sweet, adoptive home.

Back when I had only just moved back to Australia after living in London, I went through a strange type of homesickness for my adoptive home. In this process I used google maps to document each of the flats I lived in London. It's interesting that photographs induce a different type of memory than reminiscing alone.

1. Dynham Road - this was the smallest flat in the history of flathood kind... but we had a garden... a very small garden... but it was lovely. I was excited that it was a 10 minute walk from Abbey Road Studios! Bad heating, moody flatmates & a guy who lived upstairs who was a more than a little strange.

2. Willesden Lane - this was a nightmare! A huge flat, but old, moldy & kind of dodgy! Almost as dodgy as the Irish guy I shared it with. It was, however very close to a huge Sainsburys... & this was where I experienced my first London snow!

3. Maygrove Road - the nicest flat of all of them, with the loveliest flatmates, really close to two separate tube stations & half-way between West Hampstead & Kilburn high streets. The best central heating ever.

Have you ever lived away from your home country? How was that experience for you?

♥

Mel

London Love.

I left my heart in London somewhere 

between the pub & a long walk home. 

"Samuel Johnson once said:

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Before I travelled to London to live & work for 2 years I would have never conceived of the enjoyment London would give me.

As an outsider I saw London with fresh eyes, I wanted to absorb all of its glittering brilliance & be absorbed into its shadowy underbelly.

From my favorite coffee shop, Flat White on Berwick Street in Soho, the only coffee shop in London where you could get a Aussie coffee, although sometimes you had to line up out the door & sit on the curb & get your caffeine hit, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Even on a the cold grey days, a long walk in one of her many parks or a hot chocolate on a bench in Soho Square would lighten up even the dullest mood. The fall of autumn leaves showering your shoulders & feet.

To Camden Markets, where punks hang with tourists & market stalls selling all the wares of the modern world, the local pub, where a fresh pint & a bowl of chips would always help clear away a long winter day with the help of your friend’s hearty banter & the life blood of London, buses & trains… every soul in London has had their drunken trip home on the 189 bus or had to walk home from Baker Street after missing the last Jubilee train home at 12:47am.

After 2 years of seasons, I had to leave my lovely London with her dirt & grime, her river, her eye & return back to my life in Australia, but I left my heart in London. Thankfully I have my LomoLondon memories to keep me alive!

I ♥ London."

This Lomo Location post was originally published here. I wanted to post this, not only to reminisce about my time in London, but also to pre-celebrate another article I will have published on lomography.com very very soon.

x

A place to begin.

Welcome to the beginning of my blog. I hope to make this a lovely place to come visit, see some neat photographs, read some sincere words & insightful prose. I look forward to putting my thoughts on here & hope that a few of you will enjoy coming here enough to keep coming back.

A little about myself. I've been many things in my life so far, for the last 9 years I've been a poet, the last 6 years a Naturopath & the last year an avid photographer. I've lived in London, travelled Europe & come back to my homeland, Australia.

All of the photos on here are my own, unless I have stated otherwise & I will also publish my poetry from time to time. Sometimes however I will just plot my own thoughts & recollections.

Thank you for being here for the ride!

♥ M

"My witness is the empty sky" - Jack Kerouac