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The Frightened Londoner.

I think I am living in every Londoner’s worst nightmare.

I am out of the city.

Okay, I am technically not out of the city. I am somewhere much worse: suburbia. I can hear birds and the sound of children laughing. There is a severe lack of traffic and the elderly seem to own the street on which I live – (as opposed to the marijuana fuelled freshers that previously engulfed my former home in Waterloo). The Londoner in me is frightened, distressed and severely unsettled: I am without distraction and stuck in oblivion.

You see, the Londoner needs London as much as the city needs them. The true Londoner craves the significant, the big and the overwhelming. We become panicked by silence, uneasy by universally unknown landmarks and downright terrified of those who are friendly but not wishing to sell us a ticket for Penthouse. What we need is the noise, the smoke and the ultimate distraction of this city’s creative and cut-throat buzz. It is the pulse of the underground beneath the Strand that pushes us through the homesickness, while the playful menace of Leicester Square dissuades us from pondering the seriousness of “what am I doing with my life?” The Londoner needs to walk past Westminster, head-sore and weary, and listen to that figure shouting from an open window, “Just keep walking, girl! We’re trying to sort out the real problems in here! Just keep on walking...”

Once in a while though, you’ll find a Londoner find one who at least attempts to relish the quiet and the smoke-free air. They’re sitting on a bench, watching a river devoid of tour boats and tanks. They hear nothing (not even the sound of next door’s three year - old) as they fix their gaze on the opposite bank .

They see birds droop loftily across the shore, the hills standing quite still and silent. The Londoner raises their head as they catch a glimpse of movement: sunlight catches against blue sheets as they hear red buses in the background.