"And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me... the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea."
- Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
I took a walk through Leicester Square this afternoon.
The sky was bluish, the sun was kind of shining, and it wasn't raining or snowing or sleeting. It was actually kind of pleasant walking through the twisting, winding streets, with all those bars and pubs and restaurants lining the footpaths. I think it's my favourite little bit of London, that bit between Leicester Square and Covent Garden, with Trafalgar Square to the south and the Five Points to the east.
Nice to have seen it one last time.
It's my last full day in London, and it's pretty much the end of my trip. Just a stop-over in Hong Kong left, and then I'm back to Melbourne and back to reality. I've an old job to slunk back to, and an old rut waiting for me back home.
It's not without a fair bit of trepidation that I'm going back. I'm not ecstatically happy at the moment, but I'm pretty much content. Six months on, and I'm relatively sane. And I've discovered that of all the things worth valuing, sanity is probably up there alongside allegiance to a beautiful football club and a facebook account. And since Arsenal's in the shits at the moment, and I've never bothered with facebook, I should treasure my sanity all the more.
I've been thinking about why I'm writing this in a blog.
Partly, it's because I've a relentless monologue in my mind that needs some kind of release. Partly, it's for my brother, who reads it now and then and probably wants to know where I've been; and I suppose, for him, this blog is a bit like to those "Hi Mum!" signs you occasionally see at sporting events. But mostly, it's for those times in the future when I need a reminder of what it felt like when, for six months, I put aside everything and just lived.
It's my little bit of madeleine dipped in tea, I suppose.
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