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Diaries Expat Wannabe Things I'm Thinking

Life / Expat / Circumstances For Going Home Have Room For Improvement

posted on April 25, 2015

In case anyone’s wondering how hard it is to blog when you move four times in a week and one of those times is back to your parents’ in a different country, the answer is: really fucking hard, actually. It’s hard to work, too. I’m trying to ease into it but I don’t have a surefire setup; I’m sharing a room with my sister. The last time I worked it was the type of work that doesn’t feel like work — it was shooting a shop; it doesn’t feel like work while I’m shooting, only during admin and editing and the inevitable endless chasing of payment when I’m not paid upfront — and my two-session psychotherapist was like, “You’re working today?”

This was a valid question because “today” was: two weeks after being given notice on my flat, with no prospects or budget to find another; four days after having a fight with my landlady about my last three weeks’ rent and emergency-moving to a friend’s couch in Hertfordshire; one day after deciding to go back to Spain to live with my parents for a while and save up to go back to London; one day after booking a hostel and a plane ticket; one day before moving to another hotel; two days before my flight. And ten minutes after going on forever about needing a shower and not being able to get through the day without one — ten minutes before going into the clinic toilets and washing my hair in the sink with hand soap.

It’s been six days since I landed in Madrid — six days since I sobbed on a plane, then on a train while reading a book about cats, then on the platform after getting off that train, and then into my mom’s shoulder after stepping off the moving walkway. It’s taken me six days in Ciudad Real, six days following six days dragging my baggage, physical and metaphorical, around in London, to muster the strength to open this window and throw some words together.

this-week-04-18

I thought it would be worse.

It’s not good. It’s taken only six days for me to be moved to shouting and tears. It’s only taken this long because I was too tired to shift close to work for the previous five. I’m sharing my sister’s room while my grandma’s in mine until fall, and even though my mom has been reading my blog for the past eleven months, she still doesn’t seem to grasp why I need quiet time to work.

I thought I’d go to coffee shops and just stay out. I still want to try, but I haven’t found a single place with wifi that also looks like it’d let me relax. My social anxiety keeps kicking in, and I haven’t made it to an ATM yet, which I need to do because no place in this town accepts cards at all, not even with a minimum spend, and I categorically refuse to ask my parents for pocket money.

I’m not feeling great today. It’s been one good day, one bad day — the good days being, much like in London, the ones where I allow myself to take lorazepam. Today is a bad day, but it’s also been the low point of my workload stress. It’s always a trade-off. I’m not worrying about rent, but I can’t further my work until I figure out a work setup that doesn’t rely on other people understanding that I can’t concentrate or get work done unless certain basic needs are met, and actually seeing value in providing me with those basic needs. I’m not worrying about money, but I’m having nightmares and waking up with the same knot in my stomach I did in London most days. I’ve got a roof and food and running water, but my family still cause me pain.

I’ve gone on walks with my sister, went for ice cream last night. Yesterday was pretty decent. I never got to go anywhere in London because I was so broke, so I think: I can survive this town sucking balls, but then I walk around it and all my resentment comes back. Then I’m fine again.

This first week has been better than I expected, considering how I felt last week. I’ve cried a lot less. But I’m scared it will quickly get much worse, and I’m not ready — I don’t have the means — to run off just yet.

this-week-04-19

I don’t know what’s happening next.

It’s a whole other post altogether; when I left London I planned to come back straight away. I grieved it. I got off the train and I was bawling. Then I woke up on Sunday and it wasn’t so bad. I was glad to see my cat, I was glad to be fed, I was glad to have my mom around. My sister isn’t awful most of the time, as opposed to being awful most of the time when I left. My father appears to have been trying specially hard not to be an asshole, though his approach to the fight I had with my sister today (really, it’s not even the fight; it’s the outrageous fucking cluelessness as to where I’m coming from and what matters to me) doesn’t fill me with hope.

I think about traveling. I think about putting together enough money to last me through four months in London — or elsewhere in England, or around the UK — until my grandma leaves and then taking the full year she’s out to stay here and save up to move again. I think about visiting friends in Europe, if they’ll put up with me.

I think about travel blogging, and how to navigate not knowing if I’m coming back to London or when or for how long. I’d still like to settle there, but not while my business isn’t making a steady monthly income. I think about what to do about my location, my branding, my services. I have so much content to roll out from the past year — there are so many pictures, places, little things I want to share. There are hotel reviews and portrait sessions and things I never got round to when I was constantly seeking work to keep a roof over my head. London is quite charmless when you’re fighting to stay afloat in it. It was only when I was leaving that I felt that thrill of love for the city again. It had been a while. It had been two seasons.

I don’t know how to be Spanish, and I’ve never wanted to. I’m a UK blogger, and I can be a UK-based travel blogger who spends most of her time in Europe, but Spain has never been a part of who I am. It’s just that my home base, my last resort, my family is here. Home is this flat, home is my mom and my cat and my sister, and the immediate surroundings are familiar, but I was landing in Madrid and it just — it was never home for me, this country. I was on the Madrid metro thinking, “Could I live here? (two-second pause) Fuck no,” and wondering if people from around the UK felt that way about London.

My main bank account is a UK one, and I left a lot of my stuff with a friend, and I have to go back eventually. I’m just not sure what that’s going to look like in the short term. And meanwhile, Spain is where I am, and I’m trying to stay positive. I’m trying to do one thing a day, to be efficient without pushing myself into a breakdown, to be productive within the limitations of my mental health instead of continually drag myself forward only to end up where I started, carrying my depression on my back like a corpse in a rubbish bag. That’s what the past year looks like in retrospect. I was in London, but the day-to-day could have been anywhere. My little ray of sunshine was the routine of having a coffee shop where I liked everything and was comfortable and could get out of my own head every day.

That was invaluable and I miss it so much I don’t know how to live without it. I miss it the most. If I had that, I could relax the rest of the time; I could let things roll off my back. I’d still have nightmares, probably; I’d get that knot in my stomach from hearing yelling not directed at me; but it wouldn’t be quite this difficult.

/

Whatever I do, I need to keep working on my business, and to do that I need to find a setup that works for me, and some days I’m hopeful and some days I feel utterly doomed. I feel pretty fucking doomed tonight. This could have been a better story on a different day. But when do my circumstances ever not have room for improvement?

6 Comments

Diaries Expat Wannabe Freelancing London Oxford Sponsored Travel

Life / Expat / What Changes In Six Years

posted on April 9, 2015
me-by-annemari

Photo by Annemari S

 

In 2008, I spent three weeks in Oxford. I was going to say it’s well-documented on this blog, but that’s a lie, actually; I’d love to pull some travel posts out of the 2,000+ pictures I have from that time, many of which I still like. I do however mention it a fair bunch.

What I don’t think I’ve ever talked about is the two weeks I spent wondering if I could maybe — possibly — if it might be viable for me to find a job, and stay.

oxford-buses

At the time, I had a laptop, and I had my fandom corners and friends online, but I didn’t have a blog, or a shop, or anything resembling income. I didn’t have any work experience either, and I’d never in my life written a CV. I’m sure people used Skype at the time, but my mom and I talked by phone. Internationally. I’m pretty sure she ran up a three-digit bill.

Oxford wasn’t a perfect experience by any means; I had to attend an ESL course I didn’t feel I was getting anything out of, and I was put up with a host family that I got along with so poorly everyone was relieved when I was moved to a flatshare for my last week. That flatshare was in Jericho, which is a ten-minute walk to the very middle of Oxford — possibly the middle of Oxford itself; I’m not that familiar with what falls where geographically — and it was the biggest room I’ve ever been in, and maybe my favorite week of my life, perhaps second to the week my best friend was here in London last year, the first week I was here — and even then there were stressors because I had to flathunt and wasn’t exactly swimming in savings.

Oxford suited me in a way I’ve never felt any other place suit me before. I felt at peace there. I was on my own, but I didn’t feel it. I wanted to stay. I really did.

oxford-cobbles

I just didn’t know how to, so I moved back to Spain.

Fast-forward six years, or wait: let’s have a little montage of those six years first. Started an English degree in my hometown in Spain; dropped out as I couldn’t afford the tuition. Proceeded to spend five years at home, going out of the house maybe once a month, once every few months, to the library or when I had to buy something, which was rare because my family was pretty damn poor and I had the internet to keep me company. I wrote a lot of fanfic and I wallowed and my anxiety got so bad I eventually asked my GP for antidepressants. Those helped. In August 2012, I started paroxetine and quit writing. I tried to sell bits and bobs on eBay. Then in December, I opened a photography print shop on Etsy.

My laptop was on its last breath, and I couldn’t blog, or design, or do any of the things I was now realizing might be a viable career — the only career in a job market where the only available positions ever were door-to-door salesmen; a job market where a street-long queue waited to give in their CVs for a retail job that popped up behind my building once. I ran a crowdfunding campaign, one of the most stressful experiences of my life, bar having to pay rent and flathunt. New laptop led to this blog (with help from my friends, and with help from a specific friend for the hosting of this site as well), and then, on my birthday, I opened a design shop. November 2013. I was 24 at that time.

I started thinking about taking the leap to London. My laptop allowed me a movable source of income, a growing source of income, and my best friend started planning a trip to London to see her friend Ashley, who was doing a semester abroad here. My home life had been a toxic environment for a long time, and even though I could have saved up further, I knew if I waited, not only would I not see my best friend for god knows how long (we first met face to face in London in 2008, for one morning) but I’d never have the courage to jump on a plane on my own and book a hotel on my own and start flathunting on my own.

So I booked a flight, and I booked train tickets to Madrid. I bought a suitcase and got another from a friend of my mom’s. And I came here thinking, well, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. I may only be here a week.

–london-regents-pink

It’s been eleven months, and sometimes I’m so proud of myself for having made it this far. Sometimes, however, there are weeks like this week, where I need to flathunt and I’m still broke and my anxiety isn’t triggered by my toxic living environment but my financial stressors, constantly. I keep breaking down.

But I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to move back to Spain; I don’t want to leave England. Not for long, and not for home, not when summer’s approaching — braincell-killer summer in Spain; so much nicer and more productive in the UK for a photographer and model! — and it’s my parents’ turn to host my grandma, so I wouldn’t even have a room of my own there.

For the first months I was here, I skyped my mom daily. I fell into a bit of a depression hole in October and it went down to several times a week, once a week, sometimes longer periods without. My wifi fails and it frustrates me when I’m already doing badly with my mental health. But we still communicate — through twitter DMs, of all places. No huge phone bill is run, and I get to see my darling cat up on the screen, sometimes, though I miss him most of all because I can’t exactly communicate with him.

I’ve thought about going to Europe, finding cheaper places and traveling a little, for blog content, because it may well be cheaper than living in London for much longer, because maybe I’d eventually be close enough to Spain to visit my back and do it all over again.

I don’t know if I have the strength, but I’m thinking about it. And after that, maybe I’d be making enough to live in Belsize Park again, or give up the London thing and go back to Oxford.

Either way, this entire thing couldn’t have happened six years ago, and if I didn’t have the Internet none of this would have worked. I’ll refer you to the contents of my bag on that train from Stansted to London, and the person who took that picture — someone I met online a full decade ago.

—

I wrote this post for the Second Time Lucky campaign with Ocean Finance. I’m hoping they can help me get back on my feet, and have a clearer head when I consider options like ‘move to Berlin for a month because it’s cheaper there and you’ve always wanted to go to Germany, self, don’t front, you’d swoon in the little towns and take all of the selfies.’

Also in partnership with Legal & General. My entire income comes from cameras, laptops, blogs — technology has basically changed my life for the better, and given me options where there would have been none otherwise.

1 Comment

Budgeting Diaries Expat Wannabe Freelancing Mental Health Things I'm Thinking

5 Things / I’m Thinking About

posted on February 1, 2015

THIS BLOG

 
I’m changing my approach to blogging for February. It’s not going to be overly different from your end, I don’t think, but it feels different to me and that makes it exciting and fun and when something is exciting and fun, I’m allowed to run with it.

Basically, I was on chookooloonks.com the other day, and Karen has started a #365daily project where she snaps and posts a photo every day. I’ve been going over the idea in my head for a while, how it would fit into my current blog and whatnot, and I realized that:

1. There’s not much of a blogging routine for something to fit into anyway; this blog was dead for most of January.
2. I don’t want to take new photos as much as I want to get through my backlog.
3. My backlog is full of things I would like to post anyway, like portrait and fashion shoots, travel-related bits and whatnot.
4. Posts I normally sniff at — reviews, in particular — seem much more substantial when you approach them as a beautiful photo accompanied by musings on whatever the photograph is about.
5. I don’t have to stop posting ‘normal’ content; I can just do the ‘starts with a photo’ approach on any days that I don’t have regular content ready to go, and use the ‘starts with a photo’ approach to create regular content like outfit posts and longer photography posts.

I’m trying this for February and seeing how it goes. It means this blog may come off more journal-y than usual, and if I know myself, I may get weirdly embarrassingly existential a time or two. Forgive me if the seventeen-year-old snob in me comes out. She’s got issues.

MY LIFE

 
1. Instagram

I’m still doing this consistently, which is a wonder and a half. But I’m loving it anyway.

This Week On Instagram / February 1, 2015 / Lix Hewett

My regular Starbucks / Sunset over Lambolle Place / Angel Station
Coffee / A street in Covent Garden / The National Gallery / ___ / Cat

#WearYourDamnJewelry:
Umbrella earrings: JEMS / Guitar pick pendant: Greenleaf Pick Company
Leaf earrings: Promethean Design / Umbrella necklace: JEMS / Envelope necklace

2. Context

I had a design gig for a PR agency starting last Tuesday — that’s what I was talking about last week when I said I had a reason to keep normal-people hours for the following two weeks. I stressed about everything I could possibly think of to stress about, got there on Tuesday and had most of my concerns relieved, and then at the end of Wednesday, I was told my project had been put on hold. I’ve been depressed all week, because the money for the two weeks would have been a lifesaver, and losing the prospect of it hit me really hard even though I’m nowhere near as badly off as I was for most of last year.

That’s where the Angel station picture came from. The central London photos are from two Tuesdays ago.

3. Upsides

Having to get up at 7 AM two days in a row made me tired at night, which means I’ve been going to bed before 2 AM — often by midnight — all week, and getting up during daylight, if not proper early.

Working full-time made me realize I can get a lot more work done than the amount I operate (and budge) under if I focus and have a lot of time to group and regroup.

I got to meet Ashleigh and it was awesome to have someone to talk to. I don’t get a lot of that irl these days. I also happened to stress not at all about it at any point, which was strange because I usually start worrying I’ve said something stupid or embarrassing five minutes into meeting someone, but that didn’t happen with her.

Working full-time made me realize I can handle and in fact would like a regular job. Part-time, preferably, but I want one regardless, and I want to look for one, and one of these days I will crack down on my resume and start applying. Hopefully this week. I’m still terrified of spending a ton of money on transport and not getting an actual job at the end of it, but I might as well try sending my CV in for things and see what happens.

4. Expenses

I added up my expenses for January and it’s £885.45 total, which isn’t fantastic but given £740 are rent and bills and the rest of it is evenly split between groceries, toiletries and Starbucks with a small amount for transport for a job, I maintain that I should focus on making more money, not on spending less.

–

And how was your week?

13 Comments

Diaries Expat Wannabe Things I'm Thinking

4 Things / I’m Thinking About

posted on January 25, 2015

this-week-01-25

1.

I’ve always loved these little chatty posts about my life and everything that didn’t warrant a full post on its own, so I keep meaning to bring them back. I love reading them on other blogs, and I’m trying to strike a balance between life and style for my blog — which is a simple, vague way of saying I want to combine the two types of blog I like to read: storytelling and opinion articles about things, and pretty content — both fashion and my creative work as a photographer and graphic designer.

One of the reasons I’ve had some trouble making these posts is they overlap a little with the link love posts I also want to do regularly, and I’m frankly a bit afraid to go through my bookmarks for those posts. I did just manage to catch up on Bloglovin, though, so there’s probably hope. Probably.

2.

I started a daily photo project on Instagram called #WearYourDamnJewelry. It’s about what you’d expect from the hashtag — I accumulated a lot of jewelry over 2013 from trading products on Etsy, and I brought a fair bit of it with me to London because it was easy to fit into crevices of my various pouches and suitcases. I just, much like back at home, never wear it. And it’s silly because I love it, so I’m making a point of wearing a difference piece every day and Instagramming it. The hardest thing is going to be wearing the nicer bits because I never dress up or wear make-up and I basically have five outfits on rotation in winter — three of which involve hoodies.

So far I’ve kept up with it. I’ve posted: chalcedony necklace from Modern Vintage Style / heart padlock earrings from Black Cat Links / rondelle necklace from finntastic2006 / rock bead bobby pin from Romeo’s Factory (one of my first logo designs!) / watercolor necklace from Pixie Bone Jewelry / bonus: crochet cloche hat from Add Some Stitches

Definitely optimistic about this. Plus it gives me one thing to post to Instagram every day, which has gone a long way towards my goal of posting 2-3 photos every day, consistently.

3.

In fact, the only thing I’ve done consistently this week has been Instagramming. Just last Monday, the idea of posting that often every day felt incredibly difficult — and I still have a hard time thinking up appropriate captions for old photos, even though I fully intend to keep posting them. It’s too cold to go out and take new ones every day, and between Tuesday and Wednesday, I got enough photos around Belsize Park and central London to last me a while.

One of the reasons the daily Instagram goal felt difficult earlier this week was I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to start getting up during daylight again, but I’ve been making a lot of progress on that this week. Part of it is the fact that I’ve been coming to Starbucks every single day, so I no longer feel guilty thinking I’ll have to escape my room if I wake up when the heating is off. It’s an expensive habit, but it obviously works for me and I don’t have any other expensive habits, so my bank account is going to have to deal.

4.

On Monday, I woke up at 6 PM, and since I was going to a thing at 1 PM the next day and I know how terrible my sleep schedule is, I just didn’t sleep at night. Tuesday I put makeup on and I walked around freezing my hands off taking pictures, and then I headed to Leicester Square for the first time in a while.

I attended a press screening of The Singing Bird Will Come, an independent psychological thriller. It was a fantastic experience that made me want a lot more experiences like it, which backs up my reasoning back in December to want to post more entertainment-related content on my blog this year. It’s where my passion really lies.

After the film, I took a walk up to the National Portrait Gallery and then down Charing Cross Road, and ended up getting a chicken burger and sitting for a little while at a Starbucks on New Oxford Street that had terrible wifi. I stocked up on shampoo and shower gel and crashed as soon as I got home — I’d been up for over 24 hours, and my eyelids kept drooping on the tube. The day after that, I woke up at 6 AM, then again at 9 AM, and eventually got out of bed before noon.

I haven’t got up that early since, but I’ve been coming to Starbucks when it was still light outside, and it’s done wonders for my mood. And I have a reason to get up early — like, normal-person hours early — for the next two weeks, so who knows — maybe I’ll suddenly become a functional human being.

–

How was your week?

22 Comments

Diaries Expat Wannabe

Picture Friday: 2014 in Photo Booth Selfies

posted on January 9, 2015

I wasn’t going to post this, but then I thought: hey, I look cute, and also it’s a good summary of my year. My year in front of my laptop, anyway — which was a lot of my year, let’s not lie. And since that is my life, and this is my blog, I’m making this post. This post is a collection of selfies from the Photo Booth app on my MacBook, taken over the course of the year. They’re under a ‘read more’ because they’re not exactly good pictures, and they don’t meet my visual standards. They do, however, showcase my penchant for making stupid faces whenever a camera is around, and the way my year started in my room in Spain with my cat and suddenly took a turn in April, but stabilized somewhat by the end of December.

continue to full story

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Diaries Expat Wannabe Mental Health

Diaries: About The Holidays, and Life Lately

posted on December 26, 2014

(TW for anxiety/depression.)

IMG_3494

You may have noticed I didn’t talk about Christmas very much this year. The full extent of my Christmas-related blogging was a shopping guide for Christmas jumpers and a photography post showing you the Christmas lights and decorations along Regent Street in London. A couple of Christmas lights photos from Belsize Park made it into this “walk home with me” photography post as well.

The truth is, the holidays are always complicated for me. They are for most people, I think, and there’s a certain pressure to ignore that and be happy, or pretend to be, that hinders more than helps. I’m no less fond of Christmas than most people: it’s a big holiday, a holiday that carries with it a lot of familiar traditions, things you’ve known for years and which are comforting, reassuring in their longevity. The Christmas lights, the songs, the colors, the movies, the decorations, the good wishes and the gifts and the Christmas-themed foods and drinks — I like them. I honestly do. I’m still weirded out that all of London was decked out by November 3rd, but I’m not sick of it or anything. I’m not even sick of the Starbucks Christmas playlist, and trust me, those songs have wormed their way into my brain far more frequently than I’d have liked.

This is the first year in my entire life I’m alone over Christmas, in a foreign country, but it’s not the first year I’m struggling, not the first year I’m sad, not even the first year I’m stressed as fuck about money. For the past five, six years, the holidays have alternated between “depressing,” “gloomy,” and “well, this is better than last year.” For a few years when I was still a teenager, I sent out Christmas cards to my online friends. I remember the time I was living in Madrid and had to find the nearest post office to my dorm and sent out well over 20 cards to different destinations.

I cut that expense. I stopped getting presents. Sometimes my sister and I get something from other family; my aunt gave me a Pimkie gift card two years ago (technically last year, 2013, for Wise Men Day, January 6, the big gift-giving day in Spain) that I used to buy my ubiquitous black leather jacket (my first — my only, though I got a teal one in the sales the following summer — and you’ve probably seen it). To be completely honest, the lack of presents has never bothered me very much, but it was a reminder of the situation, and it made my mom sad, which made me sad — I’ve never been able to shield out my mom’s feelings.

But there’s more! One year, our electricity was suspended over Christmas. Another year, my mom went to a food bank to fill up the kitchen cupboards. Stir in my volatile relationship with my father, my anxiety and depression, and the pressure to have a good holiday season, and you’ll have a massive clusterfuck of emotions. To wit, note the fact that I told you the miseries of Christmasses past in two short sentences, and then think about how often I’m able to wrap up a sentence in fifteen words if it’s about something I want to talk about. Go on.

Now, I’m not super fussed about what food I eat for Christmas, as long as there is something to eat. Sure, I miss my mom’s roast ham and roast lamb leg and roast potatoes, but it’s something I can live without. I’ve been living without it since I moved here. I’ve been living without quail, too, because I’m too scared to walk into a butcher’s, which has nothing to do with Christmas but it has to do with “foods I used to eat on a regular basis and I haven’t touched since I was forcibly put in charge of my own cooking and grocery shopping.” I stopped eating seafood, my mom’s favorite type of food and a Christmas staple at our home, a few years ago, when a bit of prawn did something weird I could feel in my ear. Most years, the only Christmas sweet I eat is chocolate turrón. I hate marzipan and I’m not often in the mood for polvorones, so I just go for the chocolate(s), which isn’t a Christmas exclusive. Once again, this is something that mattered a lot more to my parents than it did to me. It makes sense, because Christmas is about family meals, to me and to a lot of other people, and it’s hard to get enthused about it if you can eat the meal in five minutes.

(It’s also hard to get me to stick around after I eat the meal, and by my last Christmas at home, I was eating in my room most days, so big dinners were the only family meals I participated in. There are reasons for this, see above re: volatile relationship with my father.)

But the suspended electricity — due to unpaid bills — and the food bank trip, well, those are things that stick. They’re specially sticky because it’s not like our situation is any better now. I’m making more money, but it all goes to rent, and I’m constantly worried I won’t make my next payment. My mom got a three-month government job as a street sweeper, which I hope means she can claim benefits again when it’s over, because otherwise it’s — hard to think about. It pays shit, too, and it’s exhausting, and I’m constantly in awe of her. I haven’t even managed to finish my CV. I keep hoping my freelancing will take off, and being concerned I won’t be able to make it to any interviews if I even get called in for one because of lack of transport money. I’ve been meaning to put in an application at Starbucks since I moved to Hampstead Heath, and I need to reprint it and still haven’t got round to it.

And I’m alone. I usually thrive on being alone. I know for a fact that not living with my family is a major reason I’ve been able to do more work. I didn’t have to worry about rent at home, but a myriad other things caused me anxiety. It’s not like my mental health issues are new. What’s new is that I’m eating properly and actually getting shit done on a regular basis. That happened because I left behind some of my main anxiety triggers. But I am alone, and it gets hard sometimes, and it’s Christmas, and —

I skyped my family on Christmas Eve, and it helped. It helped a lot. It helped more than it usually does, more than I expected. But I went right back to my funk afterwards. Today I’m feeling a little better, a little more optimistic, but I don’t know how long it will last. When I was still in Spain, many of my days ended badly, but they always started well. Now, my days start with a heavy heart and a knot in my stomach. I have no doubt that the reason I feel halfway capable of pushing through this evening is a client bought an additional label design and I can now pay next week’s rent. I didn’t use to worry about it until Friday, at least, but it’s more like Wednesday these days — and sometimes I worry in advance for future weeks’ rent. I used to start my weeks with optimism even if I was starting with £10 in the bank, but that’s no longer the case. Most days, I have to fight off my terror.

On Christmas Eve I was telling myself that I could go back home for six months, a year maybe, not now because it’s my parents’ turn to host my grandma, and that means no room of my own until July. Then July and August are summer, which I can’t handle in Spain. So I’d have to make it to the end of my lease — and maybe things will be better then. It’s a lot of months for things to get better. I’ve made progress, even if it’s slow and I can’t see it.

I’m still terrified. I’m so, so afraid.

I bought an external hard drive last week. I paid for most of it with an Amazon gift card from a sponsored post I did months ago, and the parcel arrived on Monday. I’d been needing an external for a while; I’m constantly struggling with disk space. I got a WD My Passport 1TB drive. Debs, whose new blog I’ve been working on, recommended that one, and it was 44% off so I went for it. I backed up my Mac on it yesterday and I’ll be transferring RAW photos from my USB sticks into that. I’m going to be pushing my youtube channel with movie reviews, mostly, and maybe feminist commentary and the occasional tag, because I love doing vlog tags. I’m actually kind of excited about that. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to get excited about in quite a while. I’m hoping it stays exciting when I start doing it. I want to make money off it, but I’m not counting on it, so hopefully it will just be fun.

How are you guys doing?

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Budgeting Expat Wannabe Freelancing

Weekly Wishes: November 17, 2014

posted on November 17, 2014

weekly-wishes-2014-11-17

I’ve had a very weird weekend. I could have been on the edge of a panic attack, but my meds — my lorazepam — pulled me back so thoroughly that I was actually productive, and optimistic, and just not thinking about my stressors at all. Then I came across Ashten’s current gratitude journal project, and realized I was at a stage with my mental health where it made sense to me to try to focus on the good — it’s a great 52 Week project because I’m starting off from such a terrible place and hoping to get to a significantly better one, and I was already journaling every day because of NaNoWriMo, so I’ve started listing things that made me happy every day along with that.

Last night, I even decided to use my Minted gift card on a planner and a couple of notebooks — only to be thwarted when it turned out the code wouldn’t apply to shipping. I’ve emailed them to try and sort it out; if anyone wants to help me out, I’ll buy you something with my gift card if you cover my shipping. (It’s $9.95 shipping. Really, it’s just. I’m that broke. Why is that whenever I get to buy myself a treat, something about shipping ends up messing it up?)

Long-running goals update

 

  • My blog redesign is progressing — the control freak in me is freaking a bit, but I’m so excited to see the mockup I did actually come to life, which I could never have developed on my own. Probably. Definitely not. Maybe someday.
     
  • My Americommerce shop is on its rightful subdomain now, which means I need to populate it so I can launch. To that end, I’ve created a bunch of subfolders in my edited pictures folder matching the organization system I used for the shop categories. Now I need to move stuff into them, edit, upload, write the copy. You know, everything except creating folders to put images in.
     
  • Weekly Wishes [Link-up]

     

  • Like I said above, I’ve picked my 52 Week project, and that project is keeping a gratitude/things-that-make-me-happy journal and blogging or vlogging about it every week. I may vlog more stuff — I’m definitely vlogging a pseudo haul this week, you’ll see, and I keep toying with the idea of filming myself singing a cappella and uploading that to youtube every week (or even every day if it proves easy) until someone takes pity on me and sends me a guitar. Which is extremely unlikely to ever happen, so I’ll probably fizzle out before I reach my goal, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it? I think it would be fun. I have no shame.
     
  • I’ve got a ridiculous amount of writing to do, for this blog and for other things, and I’m hoping I can put a day aside and just write all day long.
     
  • I’ve also got an art exhibit to go to tomorrow evening, and I may be doing my first boutique feature! Yay! So I’m actually going to central London twice this week. Amazing. Should probably get started editing the photos from last Friday’s House of Fraser Press Preview before any more accumulate. That’s next on my schedule after I finish this post. Couldn’t neglect my blog any longer; it helps pay the bills, after all.
     
  • I’ve found a little trick to get up slightly earlier than usual, and that trick is not checking my phone until I’m out of the shower. I’m usually pleasantly surprised. The other trick is actually putting my phone down after reading something instead of spend two hours playing Facebook games on it. It’s soooooo hard, though, you guys. So hard. But I’m trying. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve been doing really well at cultivating some other good habits, specifically using both the face wash and serum I got from Facacia and stretching properly while I dry my hair. I’m also eating less chocolate, astonishingly. My face is still a disaster but I’m holding up all right. Eating proper meals, watching gymnastics while I eat. Good stuff.
     
  • My big goal for the week is the list-making kind: I want to see if I can schedule my days the day before and actually get through each day’s to-do list. I’ve kind of decided to start taking lorazepam as a daily treatment and if it allows me to focus enough on what I have to do to do it — then it’s worth it, you know? I’ve been giving myself deadlines and I want to stick to them. In short, I’m trying to get organized, and for the first time in ages I feel like I’m getting somewhere.
     
  • So that’s what I’m hoping to focus on this week. What are you doing this week?

    5 Comments

    Expat Wannabe Freelancing Graphic Design London Mental Health

    24 Things I Did When I Was 24

    posted on November 8, 2014

    24 Things When I Was 24

    Because if you can’t reflect on what you’ve accomplished on your birthday, when can you?

    1. Started a design business — or started freelancing as a designer, whichever. I filled up my Etsy shop in the wee hours of November 8, 2013, and hopefully I’ll have redesigned all the graphics by the end of the weekend. I’m also raising my prices tomorrow, so if you’ve been thinking about hiring me, today would be an excellent time!

    2. Discovered print design via media kits, and realized if I could only ever do print design with the occasional logo and larger project thrown in, I would be a happy designer.

    3. Designed a magazine cover with my face on it. This was last week, but it counts.

    district-cover

    4. Modeled professionally — i.e. for money — for the first time in my life.

    5. Was on a boat also for the first time in my life. For a shoot. Wore a wedding dress for the first time in my life, also for a shoot. Modeling is kind of awesome, but can be terribly exhausting, too.

    self-portrait-boat-1590

    6. Attended my first ever blogger event. It was interesting. My social anxiety reached highs (lows?) I’d forgotten it could reach, but I’m glad I went.

    7. Met my best friend in person again for the first time since 2008.

    8. Photographed a fashion shoot with a full creative team for the first time in my life. It was one of those experiences where you learn a few things the hard way — both about yourself and about other people, the creative industry, the importance of agreements and so on. I haven’t shared this shoot on the blog yet, but I will sometime this month. I’m proud of those photos, and I enjoyed working with the creatives on that team.

    9. Photographed products for money for the first time! That’s another shoot I’m dying to share with you guys. Not only did I photograph them, but I also modeled them. Self-portraiture commercial photography is so much fun when you’ve got a little bit of help.

    product-photography

    Click to book!

    10. Photographed real-life people who were actually there to be photographed. Not for money, yet, but hopefully sometime soon. I’ve posted two bits of shoots so far: Christine Cherry and Leigh Travers. But there’s a fair bit more.

    Beauty Photography by Lix Hewett London Portrait Photographer

    Another beauty shoot I need to post: Paulina Maria (model) styled by herself and made-up by Bethany Owen, who styled and MUA’d and organized the boat shoot above.

    11. Volunteered to photograph a Pride event. Need to share those photos on the blog, too, probably. This list may be a list of posts to come, ha.

    12. Got used to getting out of the house and walking at least ten minutes every day again for the first time since I dropped out of college (again) in 2009.

    13. Went off antidepressants. It was horrible. I needed a change, and I stabilized eventually, but I had some of the worst days I’ve ever had. I was suicidal and crying and couldn’t do anything.

    14. Had a lot of breakdowns over money. Had some of the truly worst days of my life. Survived them all.

    printrbook - lix hewett

    And made a book to remember it.

    15. Started making money regularly, if only because I needed it to stay housed and fed. Didn’t always make it on time, but things worked out somehow. In this new year of my life, I would like to take the “somehow” out of the equation.

    16. Flathunted for the first time in my life. It was horrible. It did a number on my mental health. It really was my least favorite thing I did this year. The thought of having to do it again sometime makes me understand why people pay exorbitant agency fees. Then again, I’d probably have had less trouble flathunting if I’d had that kind of cash. Things worked out, anyway. Somehow. Stroke of luck. I don’t want anyone to think there’s a trick or a way to make it through flathunting in London on a tiny budget unscathed. There isn’t, unless you have a stroke of luck.

    17. Lived in Ciudad Real, Spain, with my parents and sister and cat; lived in Belsize Park with my best friend for a very short time; lived in Leicestershire with a friend I met through this blog for another short time; lived in Ladbroke Grove with two cats and a puppy (and a landlady); lived in Streatham with a kitten (and no one else); lived in Crouch End with a flatmate whose father was the owner of the flat; lived in Hampstead Heath with a host family (and another lodger); lived — live — in Belsize Park in a rented room in the landlady’s flat, with said landlady and two cats and another lodger (and as of today, one besides).

    There was a lot of moving. A lot of temporary solutions and things that didn’t work out. I have a year-long lease now, and I’m hoping it will last the year, at minimum. See #16.

    There were also quite a few cats.

    streatham-elliot-face

    This is the one I was tasked with keeping alive for a week.

    18. Wrote for money for the first time in my life. Truly never thought I’d be able to make money off my writing, so it’s been an interesting turn. I need to be more consistent about it, because I truly suck at that bit, but there’s potential for regular income and that’s really important to me.

    I also designed an infographic.

    19. Had a crush on a real live person for the first time in ages. I forgot about it until a few weeks ago, and then I was like, wait, no, it wasn’t that long ago that I last had a proper crush. I was still on antidepressants, so it was a bit different from crushes past, but it was definitely a crush. It’s just good to know I haven’t lost my ability to be attracted to real-life people, you know? Years of basically being a hermit can make you wonder.

    20. Was on my own for my birthday for — the second time, actually. First was in college, the first time, when I was in a dorm. Similar bad place, similar journaling bits, only now I depend on myself, and I mostly make it work. But I haven’t cried in a really bad way yet, and that’s kind of amazing.

    21. Skipped the Spanish summer, and could not be happier about that. Finally. (Sorry I missed my sister’s birthday, but you know. I wasn’t in the country.)

    Not that summer skipped London, but it wasn't awful nearly as frequently.

    Not that summer skipped London, but it wasn’t awful nearly as frequently.

    22. Designed a mockup of my ideal blog, and delegated the coding to a friend. This was also last week, and it also still counts. I’m straightening out my branding and I’m very, very happy with the way it’s turning out.

    23. Invested in a few things — was able to invest in a few things — starting with a tripod and a tablet, and ending with a flight to another country for the purpose of a trip to see my best friend or maybe staying, if I could make it work for me.

    24. Made it work for me, and stayed in London. Six months last week. When 2013 started, I’d made that the year I got out, and it never happened — but it happened four months into 2014. Despite all the stress, all the worrying, all the breakdowns, all the times I’ve missed my cat and my guitar and my mom, not necessarily in that order; despite how hard it’s been, I’m so, so, so proud of myself for taking the plunge and getting that flight ticket.

    I try to keep that in mind, because it was a true display of bravery that I didn’t think I was capable of. I really thought it would never happen, not on my own. But I’m here, and I’m finding my footing, and all through the pessimistic bits, all the hopelessness, this is where I want to be. This was my dream move, and I made it happen.

    —

    So, those are some things I did when I was 24. I still need to go through my 25 Before 25 list and see how hard I failed at it, but I did make progress on some of it. And then I’ll see about putting together a 26 Before 26 — or maybe not until I’ve accomplished at least 50% of the 25 list. That seems doable, yeah? I think it does.

    Back to work now — that’s what I’m doing for my birthday, trying to use the motivation of a new beginning to get on track. I blogged about this on Tuesday, and my birthday wishlist is still open if anyone wants to buy me anything. Like I keep saying: book me for a shoot and I’ll buy that 50mm lens and use it on you. Do it for my birthday. Or for yourself. I do take excellent pictures, and I do excellent design things with them.

    40 Comments

    Diaries Expat Wannabe

    Expat Diaries: Six Months In London

    posted on October 30, 2014

    All photos in this post were taken by my Annemari.

    Under my “The Diaries” category, the expat subcategory is still called Expat Wannabe. It’s not inaccurate. I’m still feeling my way around this whole living in a different country thing — though then again, that’s a lie. It’s not living in a different country that throws me. It’s making ends meet for my ridiculously expensive London rent. Ultimately, finances and housing are the two things that are keeping me from calling myself a proper expat, from believing I’m here in London to stay.

    But I am. And I’ve been here six months, today.

    six-months-text-2

    I wanted to mark this moment in some way because I’ve been missing all my previous month Londonversaries — a week before the 28th, I’d be like, ooh, in four days I’ll have been here five months, and then it’d be the 29th and it would have completely slipped my mind. But it didn’t yesterday, even if I didn’t get this post up then. It’s been a week of low-level mental health downs — tachycardia on Friday, anxiety, sobbing. Always, always about money.

    But I also didn’t hit rock bottom, and you know how they say the one good thing about rock bottom is you can only go back up? That’s never helped me in the slightest. I’ve never had a change of heart or a change of routine after hitting rock bottom. But this weekend, I somehow kept it together despite feeling incredibly, utterly dejected and hopeless, and that wobbly stability somehow allowed me to go through the motions — to get some work done, even go to bed at a semi decent hour.

    There was an attitude shift somewhere, and I can’t put my finger on it but I want to make the most of it before it fizzles out. The goal here is to strengthen my work routine — acquire one, on some levels — and I’ve never felt this inclined to work hard and regularly before, but I’ve always, always been better at doing things when I did them every day as opposed to once every two weeks, and never skipped a day (unless it was planned beforehand, see: Sundays). This post is taking me ages to write and it’s probably partly because I skipped Monday — which, you know, I was moving my blog from its blog.lixhewett.com subdomain to www.lixhewett.com, and finishing up the mockup for my new design so my friend Leila could get started on it, and pushing my work on Twitter, and… working, too, at that.

    It would be a lot easier to get things done if I didn’t get up so late. It got dark today while I contemplated getting out of bed. This is what I’m trying to avoid.

    Lix pokes installation art at Tate Britain

    This picture isn’t me poking installation art at Tate Britain in April. Nope. This picture is a metaphor. The installation art is obviously my brain, or my life, or something equally transcendent and a shambles, and I… am poking it. Gingerly with one finger while holding my camera in my other hand.

    It exemplifies everything, obviously. Mainly the fact that my life and my brain somehow keep going even through the meltdowns, and I am mystified by this. I’m still standing. I mean, I’m lying down right now, but my anxiety and depression haven’t gone anywhere, and I’m still in one piece. It’s mystifying.

    One thing that’s changed here in England is my eating habits. I don’t know if it’s the going off antidepressants, or no longer having my parents around pushing me to eat when I’m nauseous (or triggering nausea by pushing me to eat when I’m not hungry). I don’t know if it’s the reduced daily pressures — despite everything, and even though I’ve been taking lorazepam every day in halves or wholes for a week right now, it is different. It’s definitely not my sleep schedule, because that’s still shot. But the fact of the matter is I’m eating at least one proper meal every day, and enjoying it. That’s kind of huge.

    I’ve also sort of cut back on coffee, but that’s mostly because I started going to Starbucks every day and that was more than enough. Now I’m trying to cut back on Starbucks, so I got a pack of Azera latte sachets that were half price today. Gotta find a balance. Even if I have a workspace where I live now, I still find Starbucks incredibly comforting. Even when I choose the one I need to walk thirty minutes to reach —

    — which is another thing that’s changed. Most people, even in my small town, are used to ten-minute walks. Twenty-minute walks, even. I used to be used to these things, but then I dropped out of college and became a bit of a hermit who only went out of the house roughly once every four months, and that is not hyperbole. So coming to London was a learning curve. A training curve, in fact. But now I can walk those totally normal distances without dreading it or getting tired, and can even get to Hampstead without breaking a sweat walking uphill.

    As long as it’s not raining and I don’t have an umbrella, anyway.

    (I got one yesterday, finally. It’s a PR sample so you’ll see it on the blog soon enough, too.)

    P4305027

    I don’t know. It’s been six months and I have fewer moments when I look at myself and think, exhilarated, “I am living in London.” But then that’s in large part because I don’t get to experience London very much. I get to experience Belsize Park and Hampstead, and I love it; I’ve actually always had a thing for Starbucks, I could talk about that at length, and I’m so happy I now live in a place where I can sit at a coffeehouse for hours with my laptop — or a book, hypothetically; I should make this real sometime, like I always did when I was in Oxford the summer of 2008 and work hadn’t consumed my life — and just enjoy that. It’s so good for my sanity, that minimal excuse to get out of the house. I’m cutting back because it’s not as good for my wallet, but still.

    I like it here. I like this place. I like my neighborhood, and I like London — a lot. I go back and forth on whether I’d like to maybe move to Oxford for good one day or if I never want to live anywhere else, ever. London wins more easily when I’ve actually been to central recently; I guess my memories of loving Oxford are just that strong.

    It’s weird as hell to be an adult — completely responsible for myself — for the first time ever in a different country. It’s a learning curve, for sure, and there’s so much I have left to do. I’m not good at making friends offline, and it’s too expensive to go back home even for a holiday — the train from Madrid to Ciudad Real is actually more expensive than a return ticket on a low-cost flight, figures. I miss my cat so, so much sometimes, and some other times I miss simply not being singlehandedly responsible for my own well-being. Miss raiding a kitchen somebody else has stocked.

    But I’m not going anywhere, so I guess I’ll have to get used to it. And it’s encouraging to know I’ve managed this long despite the first two months with their weekly moves and the public breakdowns and the days that threw me for a loop and the weekend I truly hit rock bottom. It’s encouraging to know I’ve managed to shoot people, and model for people, things I would never have done back in Spain — even if the bulk of my work at the moment is still on a laptop.

    It’s all taught me something, one way or the other, and it’s all helped me stay afloat. That’s still my main goal, staying afloat. Maybe in six months, my finances will be stable enough that I will no longer be losing weekends to worrying about rent, and I will actually be living off my work with absolutely no help from anyone. I’m so, so grateful to the people who have helped me, and I don’t think that part of my life is behind me yet, but I want it to be

    Maybe in six months, I’ll be heading down to London every week to experience the things I love about it — the museums, the photo walks along the Thames. Maybe I will have settled into a good work routine that keeps me well ahead of my workload, instead of dragging behind.

    But I can’t imagine not being in London still, regardless of any of that. And I’m so fucking proud of myself for making it this far, and so thankful for the people who are proud of me, too, knowing every bit of my journey so far. That’s mostly Annemari, to be honest, which brings us full circle.

    Happy six-month Londonversary to me.

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    Expat Wannabe London

    Annotated London: Areas Where I’ve Lived And What I Made Of Each

    posted on October 14, 2014

    areas-of-london

    The first two months I was in England, I basically moved every other week. And I didn’t know where in London I wanted to live, so I was open to a lot of areas — and did a lot of widespread flathunting that had me going places for flat viewings where, in retrospect, I would not have liked to live. Even though I didn’t end up at any of those places, I still got the chance, for lack of a better word, to live in a few different areas in a very short amount of time, and I thought I’d share my impressions with you.

    Belsize Park

    1. Belsize Park/Chalk Farm (North West) / April 28—May 5

    I’m splitting the area here because I’m not sure what it actually counts as. Annemari and I booked a twin room in a hotel on Primrose Hill Rd, just around the corner from Adelaide Rd, and the closest station map-wise is Chalk Farm, but we walked to Belsize Park Station on a daily basis because it was a much nicer walk; Chalk Farm is really boring. I’m not actually sure what’s there, though I know there’s a big Morrisons down there somewhere. On the opposite side from where we were.

    Anyway, I basically fell in love. It’s not super well-equipped compared to other areas, but there’s a really nice Starbucks on England’s Lane, some small shops, a rather ugly Tesco, and on Haverstock Hill where Belsize Park Station is there are a lot of cafés and a Budgens and a pharmacy/beauty Boots and a bookshop and whatnot. Not too far off there’s Hampstead and Hampstead Heath, and if you walk south you hit Primrose Hill, though I haven’t been there yet. (Annemari and Ashley went there the day I took lorazepam and accidentally napped from 11 AM to 2 PM.) The bus connections are fairly good, though you mostly have to take two buses if you want to go somewhere off the Camden Town—Holborn—Pimlico path. But then you’ve got the northern line at your disposal, and even taking two buses takes a fairly short time to leave you anywhere in central London, so it works out.

    The area just off Primrose Hill Rd, on Adelaide Rd and Fellows Rd, has a few council houses that look extremely uncomfortable — I went to a couple of flat viewings there and I would have been grossed out of my mind to live there, despite the flats themselves being perfectly nice. But other than that it’s just gorgeous — lots of pretty doors and steps and railings and green. It’s residential, so it doesn’t feel as London-y as other areas, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

    1.5. Marylebone (Central) / May 5—May 6

    I didn’t get to live here, but I was around quite a lot my first week in London because it was where Ashley lived. I loved it a lot, a lot a lot, at least until I spent a night at a hotel and realized it was incredibly noisy. Even with the window shut I could barely hear my mom on Skype… or sleep. I would have got used to it, I’m sure — I got used to sleeping with construction work outside the window in Hampstead Heath — and in fact, even when I closed my flathunting search to North West London, I kept an eye out on that area. Presumably there are better soundproofed buildings than the last-minute hotel room I found on Expedia for £40, but even if there weren’t, it would still be fucking Marylebone, which is beautiful and London-y and full of shops and restaurants and activity in all the best ways.

    West London

    2. Ladbroke Grove (West) / May 14—May 21

    This was interesting to me — I wasn’t used to walking ten minutes to everything yet, so the walk to anywhere with shops or cafés from the street off Harrow Road where I lived felt extremely long. It was actually seven minutes to a massive Sainsbury’s, and you got to walk over a canal to get there, so I don’t know what I was thinking.

    Ladbroke Grove itself is a bit messy, but the numbered avenues off Harrow Rd were urban residential, with really good bus connections to the city. Notting Hill is fairly close, and Shepherd’s Bush has really good train and tube connections. It’s also really kind of nice at night — or at least the street just outside the station and some of the streets I saw from the bus back home from there are.

    So it was interesting in the sense that I wasn’t used to walking places yet and I had a travelcard and was still going to flat viewings all over, even once going all the way to Mile End and coming back on a bus to Bank to take the tube from there. I was so proud of myself because I went back home using a different route — I wanted to see a little bit of the city, and Bank is so pretty (and eerily dead) at night.

    I wish I’d taken more pictures. It wasn’t the nicest, but it was all right.

    Streatham

    3. Streatham (South) / May 21—May 30

    Streatham taught me everything I know about overground trains. I was there catsitting, and it was miserable out all week, and I was tired and exhausted so I slept a lot, got some hot food in me, and began the slow, uphill climb of catching up on work. That’s where I finished (most of) the design for The Luminous Kitchen, on the couch in the living room with a kitten on the back.

    It was a long way to London on the irregular trains, and halfway through I managed to get a place for two weeks with potential for a lease, so I didn’t venture in much. I think that happens a lot when you live in the suburbs — it happened (happens) to me in zone 2, even, though part of that is the fact that I work from home and don’t have to go anywhere, so spending money on transport is hard to justify. I’m working on it. But it was good for me to take it easy in Streatham, with a lovely one-bedroom flat and a kitten both all to myself for the week. I think I only ended up going to Streatham High Rd twice, and the first time I just kept walking and walking and ended up in Tooting Bec. It was exhausting, but I found my way back and also the path I was supposed to have taken, which was a weird lane with a couple of tunnels and whatnot. Super charming, actually, and once again, I wish I’d taken more pictures. I also think I’d feel differently about it now that I’ve got used to ten-minute walks.

    I didn’t feel all that safe walking around there, or walking from Streatham Common, but there were families around and it wasn’t bad. The houses were nice, in a less posh residential way than Belsize Park or West London, but nice. I really liked the train stations. I got to stop at Clapham Junction a couple of times and, all right, that station wasn’t much to look at, but I got there by bus when I headed over with my luggage and the outside of it, even when it’s pouring, is just stunningly beautiful in a completely different way than most of London or the residential areas are. It was good to find that out, and to see Fulham Broadway, which is also awfully charming, from the bus. I also learned more about Wandsworth and Balham and even Surrey, though obviously I never went that far. Never went further than Streatham Common on the train. But it was a good experience.

    Crouch End by Lix Hewett Photography

    4. Crouch End (North) / May 31 — June 13

    I went to a creative industry meet-up while I was living in Crouch End and when I told someone that was where I lived, she made a face. I… don’t get the aversion to Crouch End. I thought it was wonderful. The transport links are a bit questionable, but I got used to the more sparse train timetables in Streatham, and if you use public transport on a daily basis, a weekly or monthly travelcard would make the extra transfers and additional fares unnoticeable. If you’re okay with it taking an hour or so to get to central London, and I was at this point, it’s more than worth checking out.

    My two favorite things about this area were the brick-heavy architecture, all these beautiful, beautiful houses and greenery around, and the Crouch Hill shopping area. There was a big Sainsbury’s near where I was staying — it was just near Harringay station and they have a megastore on Harringay Green Lanes — but the Crouch Hill Broadway has everything. It’s also lovely to walk around in. It’s this little, super well-cared for village, of sorts, and the street is lined with supermarkets, local and chain, and coffeehouses, and restaurants, and butchers and grocers and banks and everything you could possibly need.

    The one minor problem is that the hill is very hilly indeed. The streets are steep as fuck. But they’re also awfully cozy. The whole area felt like its own little bubble. And I was super into that.

    Hampstead Heath

    5. Hampstead Heath (North West) / June 13—September 1

    Living in Hampstead Heath made me put my foot down about where I wanted to flathunt, because everything else paled in comparison to Hampstead and Belsize Park, and I mean, I was still up for Marylebone and Crouch End, but I’d rather find a place I could walk to and save time and money that way, since that meant I wasn’t going to flat viewings at opposite ends of the city and wasting hours upon hours on public transportation with the same likelihood of failure I would if I stuck to an area I already knew I liked.

    Hampstead Heath is a lovely, lovely area to live in. The houses between Keats Grove and Hampstead are full of charm, and the little roundabout south of Hampstead Heath station, and South End Rd — it’s so lovely, especially in autumn, with its multicolored leaves and the two red phone booths in the middle of the road, and the Marks & Spencer (small) supermarket and my favorite Starbucks of all the Starbucks I’ve been to. I never got around to trying Le Pain Quotidien, but there was that, too. And it’s walking distance to both Belsize Park and Hampstead. You get to Belsize Park down Pond Street and the Royal Free Hospital, and there’s a little shortcut between a children’s school and a church that’s all leafy and lovely. Hampstead is a little harder depending on where you are — I was at the bottom of South End Rd, so it was uphill, but the walk was nowhere near as steep as Crouch End. Roslyn Hill has some of my favorite houses in the area but absolutely nothing useful for a good while, so it gets a bit exhausting.

    My impression is that within Hampstead and Belsize Park, the closer you get to the Heath, the earlier and calmer the nightlife gets, and it’s not like the area’s a party zone. At all. Not even close. But it was funny to me that Starbucks there was always dead on Sundays (my assumption: family day, rest day), whereas the Starbucks on England’s Lane is always dead on Fridays. Skews a little younger/less settled the closer you get to Chalk Farm. I could absolutely be wrong, though.

    But Hampstead Heath is beautiful. As far as transport, it shares a lot of buses with Belsize Park, plus the 24 straight to Pimlico, which is the poshest fucking bus I’ve ever seen in my life. I love it. The inside is designed with the same sensibilities as a hotel. And wherever you are, you can get to a tube station on the northern line fairly easily, plus there’s Hampstead Heath, which is the overground and has trains from Stratford to Richmond — also pretty handy.

    Basically, it’s awesome. And I kind of miss that roundabout sometimes. And the Starbucks.

    Belsize Park

    6. (back to) Belsize Park / September 1—now

    I can’t believe I ended up here after all. I was a mess for a lot of the summer, even as I tried to get back on track with my work and venture into photography and modeling, so my budget was still a disaster. I think at the end of the day I had as much of a chance focusing my efforts here (with invaluable help from my friend Maria, who saved me from insanity by scouring through flat listings for me so I wouldn’t get caught up in it and have a breakdown) as I did spreading them further out, and it made sense to me on basically every level. Better stay somewhere I want to stay, you know? So I can accumulate stuff, so even if/when I move out to another place, I probably won’t want to stray far.

    I’ve ended up on one of the streets Annemari and I walked down to get to Belsize Park Station — remember how I said we did that because it was prettier? Yeah. My section of the street in particular is just — yeah. And if you turn the corner just outside my building, there are some seriously lovely flat blocks. They’re not amazingly fancy or anything, but they look cozy and well cared-for, and some of them have lovely driveways that I would love to shoot in.

    It’s quiet, and the houses are beautiful in an old, lived-in sort of way, and there’s a lot of greenery and a lot of people walking dogs and babies. There’s always a few people around but not very many, and it feels safe. I really love it. I love going out when it’s warm, and I love going to the supermarket at night on Haverstock Hill with all the lights on from cafés and restaurants and the people milling around without making any fuss. There’s a glow from the station and some of the houses on the street I usually walk down make me think of Peter Pan.

    It does sometimes feel like I’m in a different town entirely because I don’t get to London much, and when I do the contrast is very sharp. But Camden Town is half an hour away by foot, and I could literally walk through Regent’s Park and be on Great Portland Street in under an hour. One day I’ll do that. One day. When I’ve made a dent in my photo backlog and feel comfortable adding a whole lot more pictures.

    I’m really, really happy. I still can’t believe it’s where I ended up.

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    Meet Lix

    Welcome to my blog! I'm Lix: full-time graphic designer for bloggers and freelancers, and part-time photographer. I'm an unapologetic cat lady and perpetually angry feminist nightmare. I like attention and pretty things, and that's why I run a lifestyle blog. Learn more.
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