I dreamed a nightmare

And he was there,
but so was he.

...

I'm terrified of caring.
I'm terrified of letting people in.
I'm terrified of emotion.






Now I've said it, now you know.

Excess.

There's apart of me that thinks the root of most of humans problems is the inability to maintain, or even find, a medium between not caring and over caring. Couldn't most conflict and distress in the world be linked back to someone at some point either not caring enough or caring far too much? War in the Middle East: the Taliban hate Westerners, we get it, you care too much. Suicide: the person cared too much for something or someone at some point and that someone or something probably didn't care back. Global Financial Crisis: the world has always cared too much about money; theres not much more to say than that. Maybe if we didn't care so much we wouldn't screw it up so much. Divorce: could go either way, the state of excessively caring for another human, "love", can drive one to do many horrible things.

If you're in love then you care too much. Far too much. Its humanities original downfall, greatest sin and strongest instinct. If you care too much you're going to lose your mind if not anything else. I personally swing from not caring enough to caring excessively about twenty five times a day. I don't know if I could ever consistantly care about anyone.

Not that I care.

Ha.

I got really slack about posting my travel journal.

Will probably just not unless I get a sudden urge in the future.

Life got in the way.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

DAY 9 - London to Bath

After saying goodbye to the Russian ladies at the Radnor we dragged our luggage down to Paddington Station. We got there fairly early and spent some time drinking coffees and buying things from the Body Shop and Boots Pharmacy. Then we got the train to Bath. The trip seemed very quick to me. Then we got a cab to our hotel on Sydney Road. It's SO beautiful. A 200 year old mansion overlooking a park and impressive cathedral. They filmed Jane Austen's "Persuasion" in the very room we're staying in and you can see why. The owners are lovely too. A very British gentleman, Julian, and his Austrian wife by a foreign name I cannot recall. We walked around the town of Bath and I saw that Babyshambles was playing that very night in the town hall! Obviously it was too late to get tickets or anything like that but just knowing that Pete Doherty was in the same little village as I was right then and there made my heart flutter a little. We went to the fashion museum and then came back to the hotel and I read Margaret Atwoods "Blind Assassin" for the rest of the night and finally finished it. Things finally got interesting towards the end, I think my expectations were too high.

This is your holy grail and you are the priest.

DAY 8 - London

Today we went to the Spitterfield Martets near Liverpool St Station. They were better than I expected and I ended up getting two dresses that I'm in love with and an owl teeshirt (the teeshirt turned out to be something fairly ridiculous like $40 but the two boys that owned the stall were adorable and good salesman. And I'm a sucker for cute boys and then you add on English and it just gets way out of hand). In the second market area we went to, Upmarket, I nearly bought a polaroid camera but then decided against it seeing as they had no film for it left and I'm not the type to lug around a filmless camera. We looked around a bit longer then realised we needed more cash so we went to the cash machine down the road and waited in this huge line for at least 15 minutes in the cold. The only thing that kept me amused were three very colourful characters standing behind us. A trendy East-ender young man with a full blonde beard, bright green pointy alligator shoes and the habit of talking non-stop. A much quieter young man, dressed in all black, with kind eyes and a soft voice. And a very pregnant blonde with bright blue eyes and a cream and orange outfit. I found myself laughing aloud at some of the things they were saying.

Eg.
Trendy East-ender: I went underwear shopping the other day and I found it so so exciting.
Pregnant woman: You find yourself half naked exciting? Lucky you.
Trendy East-ender: No, like, its exciting knowing you're spending all this money on kit that you don't get to show off. It's like secret treasure.
Pregant woman: (laughs).
Trendy East-ender: I love a good pair of knickerbockers. Teddy's has fucking good long-johns.
Pregant woman: Well I know what to get you for Christmas.
Quiet kind eyes: That reminds me...I need to go jam jar shopping.
Trendy East-ender: Thats the most ridiculous sentence I've ever heard.
Quiet kind eyes: For Christmas presents I mean.
Pregnant woman: You going to tell him? He's gonna tell you. He told me. If he tells you, you're safe.
Trendy East-ender: What?
Preganant woman: Safe from receiving this lovely gift idea. I literally sighed of relief when he told me.
Quiet kind eyes: Picked brussel sprouts. I'm going to pickle brussel sprouts as gifts. I think it's festive.
Trendy East-ender: Thank God you told me.
Quiet kind eyes: They're actually quite lovely.
Trendy East-ender: Yeah...this one time I went to this place and they served pickled cherries and fruits with the salt beef. Like fruit in mustard. It was incredible...
Pregnant woman: Too drunk to taste it, weren't ya?
Trendy East-ender: Yeah...how bright your eyes are today!
Pregant woman: It's cos of this baby, or cos I haven't been drinking five pints a day for the past 7 months.


It was quite amusing. Then we went back to the hotel and packed our bags to leave London.

I will wander the globe til this feelings gone.

DAY 7 - London

First thing this morning we went back to Primark. I want to marry that store. I controlled myself fairly well again though. I got a pair of jeans, sailor dress and a sparkly black beret. Then we walked down Regents Street and discovered a store called Liberty. A beautiful deparment store that is all kind of Luella Bartley style (well they do stock her). We wanted to go to Marshmallow Mountain Vintage but it was closed (seemed strange for late morning on a Saturday). Then we walked to Piccadilly Circus and got the train to Embankment. There we walked along the Thames eating perfect apples and stopped at Somerset House to see a fashion photography exhibition. It had photos from London in the 50s/60s as well as portraits of icons such as The Beatles. I was exceptionally tired today and the vast amount of walking was really getting to me. We crossed the Thames and went to the Borough Markets where we bought all these crazy gourmet olives and artichokes and things. After pushing our way through crowds for a while longer we got takeaway hot spiced wine and headed towards the Tate Modern gallery.

By this time I was completely worn out, everything was getting to me. We spent only a short time in the Tate because we walked through a few gallery rooms of which 90% of the artworks were rubbish and so we decided it wasn't worth the effort. We stopped to get post stamps at the gift shop in the St Pauls Cathedral and then went back to the hotel.

We watched TV for a bit and then went down to the Sainsbury at Paddington Station to get some food. I always seem to have copious amounts of change on me and in England it seems only worse thanks to the fact they have silly coins like pennys and two pence. While in Oxford street in the morning we thought it'd be a good idea to empty my wallet for a homeless person. We had spotted one on a laneway but he disappeared before I had the chance. With a pile of pennys and two pence and other coins in hand, I walked up Oxford Street. In my mind I had a vision of pouring the coins in bulk into a needy persons hand. Used to receiving the odd coin from one in fifty passes-by, I would make his day by emptying the contents of my wallet, and then we'd smile at eachother and we'd both walk away feeling better about the world.

Alas, no homeless people appeared. But soon enough we came across a blind violinest busking and I toppled my coins into his open violin case. He couldn't see me, we couldn't exchange smiles in a moment of basic human understanding. But I could see that he heard the click-clacking of metal on metal and it made me smile to know that maybe for a few minutes he'd feel appreciated.

Anyway, point is, that night on the way to Paddington Station I saw a man in a wheelchair asking for money. He was sitting in the cold, with a blanket over his remaining leg, and his head was lowered as crowds of people passed him without noticing. As I waited to cross the road I watched him and wished I had my wallet with me; to reach out to him and let him know that someone cared to notice him. But I didn't. And as I stood there watching him I felt a wave of sick shame come over me. I felt so deeply ashamed standing there in clothes I had just bought on Oxford Street, on my way to buy food that I wasn't even hungry for. I felt ashamed that I had spent the day in art galleries and gourmet markets but had ungratefully felt sooky because I was tired of walking in the cold. I felt sick at myself, and at humanity.