Dear London...

Dear Great Britain,

No, wait,

Dear London,

It was a grey, cold and drizzly day a decade ago I arrived on your shores to live. I spent my first few nights at St Christopher's Inn on Borough High Street and never left the Northern Line. The roll call of my 7 London residences reads Oval, Borough, Clapham, Elephant & Castle, Kings Cross, Islington and Shoreditch. I loved something about them all - yes, even you, Elephant.

Oval was owned by a lovely Polish taxi driver who lived somewhere in rural Yorkshire, having driven himself into a land owning dynasty. He owned most of our street, all the terraces divided (probably illegally) into flat shares. He gave Sam and I his own TV in acknowledgement that Poles and Australians both knew the meaning of hard work. We'd put a roast in the oven and head to the Fentiman Arms for a beer and plate of chips. Couldn't afford to eat out but did it matter? Not a jot. I will say, though, that walking back from the pub to our tiny room I would look with envy at the warm interiors of other people's terraces and wonder at the money they must earn to live in them. It was my first experience of being poor, but it's hard to say I've ever been happier...earning nothing, expecting nothing. What an adventure.

Borough SE1, was a lovely step up to our own flat - two incomes now! - and was owned by Minnie Driver's aunt. She bought the flat around 1997 for £59,000. She was a photograher who married to a dentist turned music producer and she took photos of all her tenants. I'll dig ours out and post it later. Our weekly shop was the market, and I ran and ran and ran along the Thames. I could hear Big Ben chime. I loved it and I know that whoever lives there now will love it too. First - and so far only - time I've been questioned at a witness to a minor stabbing. Sadly I didn't see anything.

On to Clapham, a single girl now, and it was two summers of bikes, parties and living with blokey flatmates. It was like living on a TV show...people dropping in, stumbling home from discos and getting invited out to places all around that manor. I was 26 years old and getting younger by the month. It was the very best of times, and the very worst of times. It was my home during the 7/7 bombings and I was mugged within site of my front door. By girls on bikes. The lady who called the police told me she didn't think I'd get up but it must have looked worse than it was.

Onto Elephant then, for a short stay. It was a mistaken move but it did host a wonderful girls-only Christmas Lunch in 2005  - seating 17 around the table. Soon after that I ditched the boys and, for the first time, moved in with a friend, Sarah. Muriel Street, Kings Cross, wasn't a pretty location, but with Islington 20 yards up the road and the canal to take us to Camden it was heaven. From there I discovered the Ladies Pond at Hampstead in the summer. I trained for my first and only marathon along that canal stretch, which I could see from my window. Sarah studied for entrance into medicine using our Ikea coffee table and I studied for my financial exams using the ironing board. That address the home to the height of my insomnia which marked it darkly as far as being a good flatmate, I'm afraid. If only I knew then what I know now.

Residence no. 6 was Liverpool Road with Simon and my introduction to Living With Kids. Harry threw up on me on the sofa there, peed in his sleep in the corridor, and we read stories to the boys in bed. It still holds the record for being my longest running address, but still no sleep. Miserable years at work. But Islington I loved - its pubs, its farmers' market, its blossom trees, its squares, our friends, still in London, still nearby. Whenever I think of it, it is spring or autumn I recall. We tried to buy our own patch there, but it wasn't meant to be.

Which brings us to Shoreditch - an experiment with City living. We live above a tex mex restaurant in a building with just a few other invisible souls. There are no light switches in our bedroom, it is daylight 24/7, and if you run the kitchen tap you are rewarded with a brief but powerful sewage smell in the bathroom. An exhaust fan runs through the height of the building which provides a reassuring hum throughout the night in the spare room. Isn't this typical London living? Nothing is ever as it seems. The wall of windows provides a nightly array of entertainment from midnight photo shoots and rappers filming video clips, to raves in the empty car park opposite and parachute regiments jumping from Chinooks over the Artillery Barracks. This is the beating heart of London now - East is best. I live where I work where I eat where I shop where I volunteer - the lastest experience.

There is a whole other letter I could write to Britain, but it is to London that this last decade belongs. The tube, the lidos, the parks, the markets, the vintage stores, the terrible coffees, now the flat whites - that other Aussie invasion. Some money, more money, less money. Exams, learning again. A boom, a bust. Bikes, the canal, walking. Lots of travel, no travel. The Heathrow Express. Seasons. Dancing. Theatre. Visas, visas, visas. A whole new career. And always, brilliant graffiti.

Where to next? Who knows. London Fields maybe, closer to the pool because I can't swim enough. It will be something bijou to buy, I think, to be sure when I'm old I can visit. Maybe to pass on to nieces. If London is still a place to be. I'll start looking this week, I think. Always moving on.

With much affection,
Your newest citizen.
Monday 17 Sept. 2012.