Feeling funny when friends go home

Two friends - Emma and Yvonne - who I worked with in Melbourne and who have been here since before I arrived, are going home. It sounds a bit sooky (specially given that we spent more time talking about how we 'must catch up' than actually doing it) but I'm going to miss those girls.

We managed to hook up for one final dinner at an awesome middle eastern place in Paddington, just streets away from the red-bedecked hotel room at the top of some rickety stairs that the blokey and I shared when he first came to England. It looked like it had once been a bordello... Yet I could never afford here unless I were a millionaire. That's Paddington - elegant but vibrant. Classy yet cool. Loaded with pubs with ornate plaster ceilings, Victorian wallpaper, and chandeliers. And an easy place for the girls and I to get to after work.

After the tediousness of office politics and the reticence of so many English folk, it feels so good to just hangout with fellow Aussies and know that we all find the same things a bit weird about England: people not making eye contact on the Tube, or not understanding why old stuff is cool cos they're surrounded by it all the time - and don't get me started on the whole 'breasts as public property' attitude, and sexism generally!

We talked non-stop for hours, in that way that only Aussies can, trading gossip, half remembered travel tales and news from friends at home, all at once. Even on the way home, we hovered at the entrance to Paddington tube, trying to squeeze in that last story, anecdote, juicy detail. For 40 minutes of it (coulda had a pint - but nevermind!)

Knowing that they're going has shaken me from complacency a bit. When it's our turn to head home, will we have done everything we've wanted to? That day feels a long way off right now - but what if something changed? Life has felt rather 'heads down, bums up' over the past few months, and there's definitely a difference between 'travelling here' for a year, and living here. Time to pull my head out of my routine a*se, I realise. Suddenly, I feel a fog lifting, bringing half-forgotten plans for travel, learning and sightseeing into crisp focus. That's more like it!

I pondered this all the way down to Hyde Park, where I'd catch the bus back to Oxford. I still wouldn't live in London, but her buzz tonight has given me much to think about.