kicking it old skool

I got to see a different London today, one I’m sure countless other folk see but due to the fact that I never have to be up that early, I rarely catch a glimpse of it. I had to be at work early today for some rollout related monitoring etc, so I was standing at the bus stop at 05:45 already. The sun was out though, and I dunno, something about the crisp, cool air, the absolute quiet of the streets and the very chilled Café Del Mar 12 on the iPod blew my mind! As I said, just the eerie silence of the streets, the total lack of life and movement was quite unique. I happen to stay in quite a beautiful area to boot, so green trees mixed with century old buildings created quite a unique experience.

Just had another thought pop into my head: there is this one park I walk passed, on my way to the shops and fresh food market, where all the leaves from the nearby trees have clumped together by a fence. If it’s been raining at all during the day, you get that very sweet, forest floor smell as you pass by. It reminds me of when we went hiking in Tsitstikama about a year ago, all pseudo-rain forest and fresh.

Been having a lot of those lately, random thoughts popping in my head, all triggered by smell. Like on the Angel high street, as you approach the Body Shop, you get an almost sun-creamy smell, only slightly different. To me, it smells EXACLTLY what sunscreen smells like when you’re lying next to that Olympic size swimming pool back home in Ceres Dennebos; mingled with fresh grass and pine trees on a warm summer breeze.

Could be that my subconscious is letting me know that, even though I don’t think it, a part of me misses home. But what kind of person would I be if that wasn’t the case?

I saw no less than 12 highly-pregnant women on my way to and from work last week Thursday and Friday. Must be the season to pop one out. Gotta hand it to these chicks though, lugging all that bacon up and down into tube stations and onto busses can’t be easy. Imagine what their backs must feel like! They’ll put Amazon woman to shame, lemme tell ya…

Getting all patriotic over here, with the build up to the Soccer (oh, sorry, “Football”) world cup. Ugh. It’s quite annoying, seeing little England flags protruding out of every freaking car and all this nationalist pride is making me ill. I reckon it’s two-fold, as in I HATE soccer (screw you pommie, its called soccer!!!) and I could not be bothered in the least with their patriotic “Barmy Army” bullshit. This is definitely not one of those “When in Rome” moments.

Heh, there’s a guy that sits opposite me at work that looks like a spitting image of Jimmy Neutron (the older version)! Very cool actually, he looks straight out of a 1950’s Nuclear family poster. Just add pipe, newspaper and perfect live. (Where do I come up with this shit?!)

Ever notice how some shop fronts or houses, where people live side by side, are only half painted? Like the guy at number 10 repainted his house, but only his part of the property, split neatly down the middle, down to the millimetre, while number 11 still looks like a brush hasn’t touched it in 20 years? Why are humans so fucking stupid? Can’t you just walk over to the guy next door and agree on one colour, and then split the difference? It has to be done anyway every few years, may as well team up. The joke is that it’ll not only instil a bit of pride in your both properties but also increase your property value. Maybe I’m missing a point here, but it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Just a small reminder on how humans can’t even agree on the small things sometimes. No wonder everything is so fucked up.

“But hey, as long as we have Soccer, all will be well! What else is there to life?!”

What-the-fuck-ever…

Last but not least: Xmen 3 starts next week (I can’t hardly wait!). They have these MASSIVE posters at most of the bus stops. I have made arrangements to liberate a Wolverine one from its plexus-glass cage in some God-awful hour of the morning. Problem is, this town is one of the most heavily monitored cities on the planet!! So I may need to peruse other means. Damn, I WANT THAT POSTER!!

My girlfriend’s parents are over here, touring the town on one of these. Kinda cool, they can park off pretty much anywhere around London they want. They’re close to where we stay at the moment so we’ll probably go say hi tonight.

[G], out…