What a difference a decade makes. In 2008, just a couple of wide-eyed early 20-somethings (who, admittedly, had already lived in multiple countries), Justin and I moved to London together. Justin (an American) was on a student visa and doing his Masters degree. I worked (sometimes multiple jobs at once!) as a nursery assistant, a waitress and a teaching assistant before going back to university to get my PGCE (teaching qualification). We ended up staying in London for five years, lived in four different apartments in that time, kicked off our careers and even got married.
Our first London flat was in the then very hipster-ish area of Brick Lane in East London. It was just the right place for that time in our lives: young, creative and cool (not that I’m saying we were ever any of those things, but we certainly enjoyed being in that environment!). We went to indie music gigs almost weekly, read The Guardian every Sunday and ate vegan food in an old converted London bus. We shopped small, upcoming labels at the Upmarket on Sundays and rented indie and foreign DVDs from a little DVD rental place. It was a carefree, fun time. We only lived around Brick Lane for a year before moving to a different neighbourhood in west London (and then another and then another!). While I fell in love with living in west London, there is nothing like the memories of your first London neighbourhood.
Flash forward to 2017 and, nearly a decade after we first lived there, we were back in London. We’d long ago married and this time we had a baby in tow! I’d never considered staying in Notting Hill before but our Airbnb (I have my concerns about Airbnb and it’s impact on locals, but I can’t deny it makes traveling with a baby easier) was in a perfect location. It was right above a delicious bakery on Portobello, which meant yummy croissants and coffee for breakfast each morning. The bedroom, meanwhile, looked out onto one of London’s iconic mews. It was nice to have more of a home base instead of a hotel when revisiting a city we lived in for so long.
Over the next three days we really pounded the streets- averaging ten miles a day (and I with Little S strapped to me in the Ergo the whole time). We walked around the old City, hit a few museums (all free- I love that about London), drank endless cups of coffee and visited a couple of our favourite book shops (Foyle’s and Daunt) and a favourite park (Holland Park). The first morning I even woke up early (credit: jetlag) and watched the sun rise over the mews from the warmth of our cosy bed.
The amazing thing about London is that it’s a city for everyone, no matter what stage of life you are in. Some places never seem to change, (the dome of St Paul’s is a view I never get tired of), but one area that struck me as quite different was Brick Lane: our original London stomping ground. Gone was our little DVD shop and in had moved a couple of chain coffee and sandwich shops instead. Round the corner was a luxury perfume shop- perhaps signifying that the young spirits of a decade ago are now grown up and wealthier.
Of course, change is inevitable and this area has been through many identities. I’m sure the immigrant population that lived there in the 70s would really wonder at the handlebar-mustached hipsters living there in the ’00s and ’10s. I was happy to see the traditional Jewish Beigel shops were still there, serving all kinds of different customers, many decades after they opened.
It wasn’t just the area that had changed, so had we. I’m old now! Or, well, older. Nothing signified that more than stopping at one of our past favourite coffee shops: Nude Espresso. I remember that place opening in ’08 and it was the first place I ever tried a flat white! Then I was in my early twenties and now I’m in my early thirties. I watched two early twenty-somethings chat animatedly at the table in the window, the one I sat at while I studied childhood pedagogy before starting my teaching course. The barista was probably the same age I had been when I lived there. Age doesn’t matter but responsibility does and now I’m a wife and mother, a little less carefree than I was back in 2008.
This all might sound like it was a disappointment to revisit this area. But this is not to say I didn’t enjoy it; it was just different. A reminder than we all grow up and change. Life is less about bars and music now and we certainly don’t have time to read The Guardian every Sunday (which now, of course, we would be reading on our ipads instead of in print form) but it’s still plenty of fun! We still travel, go to coffee shops, museums and galleries; we just have a super cute toddler in tow! Brick Lane was just one stop during our three days in London and it was definitely an interesting trip down memory lane. But judging by all those miles we walked, we have a whole lot of memories in a whole lot of other places too.
Our last morning in London we hit one last coffee shop and met up with some old friends. But this time it wasn’t a trendy favourite, it was Bertie and Boo’s children’s cafe! Like I said: London has something for everyone at all stages of life!
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Have you ever revisited a place? How had it changed or stayed the same?