London Town - Summer 2010 and leaving home

"I heart my life"
:)

Blog writing, I'm afraid, has become secondary to packing recently. Because yes, that's right, the time has finally come. I am moving to London on Sunday. My room is piled high with suitcases, boxes and bags. My walls are stripped of posters (knowing I will have a pinboard in my room, I have packed enough photographs and magazine pages to completely cover it on arrival. Because after all, a blank pinboard is a sin, not to mention depressing), and my wardrobe is disconcertingly bare. I have started to worry that I won’t manage to fit all my clothes in my university wardrobe, but no doubt I will manage. After all, I wouldn’t be a true fashion journalism student if I didn’t love clothes now, would I?

It is strange to think that the day I have been waiting for since April (when I found out I had a place at the London College of Fashion), is finally about to arrive. Excited doesn’t really cover it.

For the last few months I have had a countdown chart on my wardrobe door; crossing off each day brings London and my new life nearer and nearer. Looking at my chart today, a mass of black crosses and with only 2 white spaces left, I feel an overwhelming combination of excitement and nerves. Actually, I take that back. Perhaps I do have a few nerves, the sort of anticipation that it would be unnatural not to feel when leaving home and setting of, alone, on a new adventure. But mostly I just feel extremely, fantastically, close-to-explodingly, happy.

Because on Sunday I will be living in London.

Ryantown, home to my favourite artist and one of my favourite places in the world, will be just down the road...

As will Columbia Road's heavenly flower market, full of smiles, colour and fragrances to make your heart soar. I will be starting to study something I am passionate about, in a city I am in love with. Doesn't get much better than that.

Nonetheless, I have had a fantastic summer that I'm sure I will remember for a very long time. Packing up all my things into a few boxes, I can't help but think about the memories I'm packing up to take with me too. Summer 2010 has been a very special one... Here's why...

- The last day of school, the end of 13 years of education, and a perfect opportunity to get dressed up with friends, this time as the incarnation of our childhood ambitions. When else in my life am I likely to see Spiderman, Marilyn Monroe, an astronaut, a Russian communist, Barbie and a ballerina walking down the road?

- Reading in the sunshine with my friends. This summer's reading list included: 'The Devil Wears Prada' (in french), 'Enduring Love' by Ian McEwan, 'Lord of the Flies' (I had never got round to reading it before), 'Small Island' by Andrea Leavy, 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert (and coming to the conclusion that Emma Bovary was a self-obsessed old madam who should have thought herself lucky to have a Charles) and 'The Gospel According to Coco Chanel' by Karen Karbo. Eclectic indeed.

- My dad's wedding; the sunniest day of the year spent drinking champagne, grinning from ear to ear and floating around in a floor-length purple dress with my sister.

- Best friends and party dresses

- Feeling generally very HAPPY

- Days spent exploring the countryside with my mum (here at a country fete in Hatch, complete with cake, tea, cords, straw boaters and bric-a-brac).

- A week in Devon with my friends. It probably goes without saying that as we were camping it of course rained for most of the week, but it was still fun and, when the clouds ceased their downpour for a brief moment, beautiful.

- Picnics in fields that were made complete by lovely company, lemonade, homemade cakes and rolling hills topped with trees.

- A week in Ile de Ré with my french family (not related by blood, but then who said family was all about biology?) meant sun, sand, sea, cycling and lots and lots of laughing.

- Italy with my best friend: walking up cobbled streets in inappropriate footwear, the endless excitement of shouted "ciao bella"s, and of course, a lot of ice cream.

- And falling in love with Rome...

Now, with the summer at its end and autumn setting in, I feel rested, relaxed, and immensely grateful for such a good summer. Saying goodbye to my friends tomorrow will no doubt be hard and tear-filled. I will miss having my family around me. I will miss my double bed and my cosy room. But I'm ready to go now. Because, in the end, London wins.

Libby