Week 1 in the Big Smoke

Or: Distress in Westfield

I’ve never particularly enjoyed large cities or bustling crowds of people. With this in mind, I recently moved to London. I got an offer for a job, and the job wanted me to start immediately. It was a brilliant coincidence, as I needed money for existence, so off I went down to The Big Smoke¹.

Up until this point, my main places of residence have been the village of Longniddry (population: 2,340) and the city of Edinburgh (population: 506,520). London boasts an ever so slight increase in size at 8,860,000 residents, so I was overwhelmed to say the least. My trial by fire came in the form of commuting via the Central line and switching to Northern to make the hour-long journey to my office. This was intense, sweaty, loud. Never in my 24 years had I been subjected to so many middle-aged men’s knees.

In an effort to reward myself for my first week of making a big change without having an aneurysm, I decided to buy some yarn on the weekend². My nearest reliable place of purchase on a Sunday afternoon was Westfield. Are you familiar with Westfield, reader? Just in case you’re not - I’ll summarise. Five floors, 2,600,000 sq ft of space, over 300 shops. It’s a gleaming mass that invites you to spend, peruse, and buy a cinnamon sugar pretzel. Off I headed, seeking entry to the fortress that held my coveted Sirdar Cotton DK Weight Yarn. It started to rain and my resolve briefly wavered, but I persisted, for I am made of stronger things.

By the time I reached Westfield, it was pouring. Fat droplets of water hit anyone unlucky enough to stand under a roof, and the hammering of rain unpleasantly mixed with the sound of the crowds like an awful white noise machine. My socks were wet because I’d worn impractical shoes³, and there were So Many People. I was just getting acclimatised to London’s insanity, and this instantly destroyed any progress that had been made. Every single person in the entire world was here, slowly ambling along as they looked in shop windows and interacted with the jarringly jovial people in charge of those perfume stands in the middle of the walkways.

I am an honest woman, and I will admit that I got distracted en route. Maybe it was the fault of the aggressively nice Lush shopping assistants, who lured me in with their shower gel that smells of dates. It could have also been the Cath Kidston x Paddington collab, cloyingly sweet as it grabbed hold of my card and made me buy a pyjama set. We will never truly know. But I got lost. I went up an escalator, down an escalator, round a corner, slowly growing angrier with the general public as they nattered away with no sense of urgency. Why were they enjoying their leisurely day out instead of hurrying up? Eventually I had to give in and tap one of those big screens with a map of the building, therefore signalling to everyone who could see that I was a stupid idiot. I am astounded that I was not escorted out of the building for this embarrassingly directionless action.

My rage had peaked by the time I reached John Lewis, and it was difficult not to slam the off-white ball of yarn on the cashier’s desk, but she was very lovely and had no role to play in my anguish. Having paid, I promptly began exiting the establishment, making a concerted effort not to walk into the group of teenagers living out the blissful delights of their juvenile years outside Primark.

And as I walked through this vast temple to consumerism, silently begging the gods to strike me down if I ever came here on a rainy Sunday again, I stumbled across a most wonderful sight. Outside Kiehl’s, looking very suave in his lab coat and glasses, stood a charming skeleton⁴ that I assume acts as a warning about what will happen if you do not use their Whipped Body Butter.

In front of the skeleton stood a young man, aged early to mid-twenties. He looked at the skeleton, lifted his arm, and gently stroked its (hopefully) fake skull. In this moment, my icy frustration at the city melted away and evaporated. Seeing this Londoner attempt to connect with these plastic bones in the form of human warmth softened my attitude towards this sprawling megacity. I emerged from Westfield a new woman. Yes, I was still soaking wet. But by golly, was I ready to take on this new adventure.

The skeleton in question.

1. I am left wondering why New York is the Big Apple but London is not a fruit - big or otherwise. I refuse to google it, but I delight in considering which fruit this city would be.

2. I’m really into crochet these days - it’s a whole thing.

3. Sorry mum.

4. Note to my boyfriend: I do not fancy the Kiehl’s skeleton.