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The London Riots

SarahAlderson

August 11, 2011

I’m a Londoner. I will always be a Londoner. My grandfather grew up on the Old Kent road. My mum was born on the Peabody estate in Pimlico. I spent a lot of time as a kid staring out the window of my grandmother’s flat over at Battersea Power Station never understanding the optical illusion which meant I could only see three of the four towers. I walk these streets weaving in and out of tourists, on autopilot, pointing out landmarks to Lula where I used to work (I temped A LOT) and the places I got fired from. I cross the roads to avoid places I kissed people I shouldn’t, I smile as I stroll past bars, restaurants, museums and shops – scenes of first dates, first sightings, drunken birthdays and my first pair of knee high boots. It’s in my heart. London will always be my city no matter where I live.

Which is why this city also has the power to break my heart.

I worked for almost ten years in the area of social inclusion – creating and running projects (with the help of amazingly talented committed staff and volunteers) that supported people who were socially excluded to feel more connected to the communities that make up this city and other cities around the country.

Then I watched the riots play out across the UK and wondered what difference any of it had made. There are too many conflicting thoughts at play in my mind and in the minds of everyone I talk to right now. I feel a mix of shame, embarrassment and anger. I also feel huge sadness at the divides that have ripped our communities apart, the dangerous and widening wealth gap , the lack of respect and pride others, especially the young, seem to have for this city and the awesome people who live here.

In the days that followed the riots, people piled onto the streets with brooms to clear up the mess. I actually cried at pictures of people pouring tea for riot police, at those forced to defend their own property, at children who swept away broken glass in front of shops smashed up in their streets. It gave me hope and it restored my pride and faith in this city. Up to a point – show me a picture of Boris Johnson or David Cameron right now and I’d happily tear it to shreds. I’m also frankly appalled by some of the racist, right wing rhetoric appearing on Facebook and Twitter, often coming from people I know.

We’re leaving London in 10 days. Walking away from London at this point feels strange. I feel like I’m deserting my city, throwing my hands up and walking away in despair whilst shaking my head. I feel like I should stay and be part of something that I hope develops from this – a greater sense of community and pride in our homes. And two years ago, working in the volunteering sector I would have felt a huge rush of energy at the potential that could come from such a hideous chain of events. Unfortunately, Cameron in all his wisdom has dismantled most of the voluntary sector that could have been harnessed to transform the will on the streets right now into long-lasting action. Shame on him.

Having said that I can’t wait to get back to Bali. Perhaps because it’s smaller there the ex-pat community relies on itself rather like a tribe for support. It’s that sense of community that we never properly felt when living here (despite the fact I worked on community projects) that we have found in Ubud, and which I hope London begins to find again.

Whatever happens I wait with baited breath. I want to bring Lula back every year and walk her through these streets pointing out the places where her great grandparents house was bombed out and where they rebuilt it. I want to show her where her nana went to school, and where I first kissed her father. I want to show her the city that I love so much. I want her to grow up feeling like she’s a Londoner and feeling pride in this city and her heritage.

And right now I feel like it could go either way.

On the table

SarahAlderson

11 comments

July 30, 2011

Look here I am!

I’m right there on the table next to Stephenie Meyer and beneath the fantastic Divergent.

If the camera panned upwards you’d see my grinning like a loon. I’m on the table NEXT TO STEPHENIE MEYER.

My book.

Is on the table next to BREAKING DAWN.
And did I mention DIVERGENT?

If you’d have told me this a year ago I would have laughed in your face at how ridiculous you were being. But look people – there it is. In Waterstones no less.

I signed my first copies in store (Brighton Waterstones). The staff in Waterstones were brilliant and invited me back to do a reading or signing. (The girl who works there looks just like Keira Knightley.)

I am still grinning like a loon. It’s particularly funny because Stephenie Meyer was the reason I started writing in the first place. I loved Twilight and then when I was struggling to think of something to do to make some money I thought, ‘I know I’ll write a book! Stephenie Meyer’s a gazillionaire and all for writing about vampires. How hard can it be?’

Turns out, very hard, but look, I still made it.

I feel like this story should be in the fairy tale section of Waterstones.

We are here We are here

SarahAlderson

2 comments

July 25, 2011

I don’t know what’s happening in the UK to make me slack off on the blogging. Possibly my re-acquaintance with wine.

And my new addiction to Goodreads.

Seriously I sit in front of the computer refreshing the page and watching the counter on my Hunting Lila page. As of now, 709 people have added it to their To Be Read shelf. Sorry 710.

I spent a heavenly week in London. It was heaven because I was BY MYSELF. All you earth mothers look away now… I am not just a mother I tried to explain to Lula earlier today. I’m also ME. She ignored me.

So I took 7 days off and oh my god, hello happiness. Hello ME.

I spent five days at my friend’s house in a very lovely part of South London (yes those areas do exist). She skipped off to work every morning and I’d saunter down in my undies to the kitchen, make myself a cafetiere of fresh coffee, slope back upstairs, enfold myself between the crunchy crisp white duvet and piles of pillows and start surfing the web and er, ostensibly editing my book in between facebooking and tweeting. Oh the joy of not having to drag myself out of bed to make a small child breakfast, argue over wearing pants, brushing hair…

Mid-morning I’d stretch my limbs and get dressed then hop a train to London and meet a friend for pints of wine, gallons of pimms, fish and chips, giggle splurge trips to Vivienne Westwood, hot chocolate at the Curzon, dumb movies and lazing in London parks.

When I say this week was heaven I mean it. It probably ranked up there as the best week of my life. Possibly even trumping my honeymoon.

And then Lula came back.

Not that I don’t love my daughter / wouldn’t die for her / enjoy her company in the 53% of the time when she’s not tantruming, but seriously I do miss and I do crave solitude. And as a writer I need it more than ever. So I intend to spend a week like that every year from now on. (Claire are you listening?)

Now we’re in Cumbria in the middle of nowhere. I try and tell Alula that this is where she comes from. Her roots. This is her family’s land and has been for generations. She ignores me, picks a red clover (apologizing to mother earth as she does) and starts singing ‘WE ARE HERE WE ARE HERE WE ARE HERE’ (you need to have watched Horton Hears a Who to get that one)… ‘it’s about no matter how small you are mummy you are still important’ she tells me. Her grandfather chases some dogwalkers off. I protest because what’s the harm in them walking across a field. There aren’t any sheep.

It’s my land, he says.

The French revolutionary inside me rears up and I walk away before I call for his head.

Don’t wake me

SarahAlderson

3 comments

July 17, 2011

My first book Hunting Lila comes out in just over two weeks’ time, and joy, it’s getting rave reviews and will be on the 3 for 2 tables in Smiths and Waterstones throughout August.

It’s been a long journey and if you were with me from the start of can we live here you’ll know how I only first started writing when we decided to leave the UK because I couldn’t think of any other idea for how to make money. And thank God I didn’t google how much writers actually earn. But anyway fast forward 18 months and I actually have not one, but THREE books coming out in the next year.

ahahahahahahahahaha

There’s a line in Lila where she thinks that maybe she’s lying on a pavement in south east London comatose because she can’t believe the reality of her life and that’s pretty much how I feel every single day. I walk around grinning like a simpleton. (When you do this it’s surprising how many men smile back at you). I also drink a lot of wine because a) in Indonesia there isn’t any (or none that I can afford) and b) I feel I have an excuse to celebrate every minute of the day. I also buy a lot of things (more on this later) kidding myself that one day I’m going to be rich and will be able to afford to pay it off.

Ahhahahahahahahaahaha (that’s my publisher and every other writer in the universe bar JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King laughing at my naivete).

For the last two weeks in London I’ve been meeting my agent and my publisher for posh lunches, I’ve been editing my second book, and I’ve been working hard on promoting Hunting Lila (in between shopping of course) – there’s a blog tour starting on the 1^stAugust and I am stalking the heck out of readers on Goodreads (I figure if I friend them all they might feel more inclined to give me a nicer review – cunning huh?). My favourite question so far in the interviews: How has your life changed since getting a book deal?

The funny thing is, I realised that my life wouldn’t be that much different to how it is now – ok fewer wining and dinings probably, but we’d still be in Bali. And I think that’s a really cool thing. My writing didn’t create the lifestyle. The lifestyle created the writing. (Ok and also John paying for everything at the moment is sustaining the lifestyle – thank you thank you amazing husband).

But the really exciting news, well second after the news that I have bought the most stupendous Vivienne Westwood dress and killer shoes for the launch, is that a ten year friendship with someone I met at uni has evolved into lunch at the Ivy Club (Daaaaaarling) and an offer to option Hunting Lila by an independent production company.

It’s early days of course and I’m naturally circumspect about stuff like that, though I am going to be wearing Westwood to the premiere and have written the clause to go in the contract which gives me the right to sit on the casting couch and test drive the male actors…but as I said, I’m totally circumspect…

If I am actually lying in a coma on a street in south London somewhere, please don’t bother waking me up.

I’m lame I know. But I have excuses

SarahAlderson

1 comment

July 12, 2011

I’m sorry. I’ve been lame. I’ve been distracted by Vivienne Westwood, the deli counter at Sainsbury’s, trying to buy credit on a pay as you go phone and driving to Norfolk and back.

In the last week I have:

Bought a 300 pound dress I can no longer fit into

Eaten too much so now I weigh more pounds than the dress

Visited two National Trust houses and learnt that 18^th century beds are smaller than modern ones not because people were shorter but because in the olden days they used to sit upright to sleep as they thought if they lay down they’d die.

Explained to Alula who the Virgin Mary is

Also explained to Alula the concept of a soul and how being naughty will affect what she comes back as in her next life

Had lunch with a lesbian killer vampire and got the low down on all the cast of TWILIGHT….oh yes people I’m in possession of some awesome titbits about Robsten and the short underage one with the illegally hot six pack.

Written three chapters of my new book and toned down the kissing scene in the book that I’m editing (by order of my editor).

Got my hands on an actual copy of Hunting Lila

Figured out that neither my mum nor my husband can read a map without turning it upside down to figure out left and right and that altogether it’s best if I both map read and drive if we ever want to arrive anywhere

Cooked a leg of lamb people without destroying it or the pan or the oven or burning down the kitchen. Result.

Realised again that I hate cooking and vowed never to cook again.

Done the laundry for the first time in 18 months.

Dyed Alula’s clothes blue and shrunk John’s t-shirt.

Despaired of ever finding a bra in my size in M&S (because they don’t make them that small anymore apparently).

Drunk a lot of wine.

Stress & Worry & Anorexic celebs

SarahAlderson

no comments

July 6, 2011

I worry about more stuff here. I stress more about silly inconsequential things. I have to think more – What time train? What shoes? Umbrella? Where’s my oyster card? Can I really afford this second Frappacino? Who are all these people in Heat? Why are they still doing up the same escalator on the Victoria line that they were last time I was here – surely it can’t take 18 months? (fact: yes it can).

It’s mentally exhausting. I feel like a character from a Bronte novel, and not the heroine but her annoying great aunt who’s always needing the smelling salts and having an attack of the vapours.

Whilst I’m enjoying the walks along the southbank, wine, catching up with friends and family, going to the cinema (sugar popcorn!), m&s undies, I am craving a return to my simpler life in Bali. There’s less choice, less media to get absorbed into, no tv and no glossy mags, no fashion and no fashion choices to be dictated by the weather. Overall I’m calmer there, and happier. I find gratitude all the time and with that comes a kind of peace I think it’s practically impossible to achieve living and working in a city. It’s hard to feel anything but tired and stressed when you’re faced with four hour train journeys, drunken people swaying into you on the pavement and constant exposure to the following two headlines: ‘ANOREXIC CELEBRITIES’ and ‘AMAZING: Kate wore an Issa dress on the eighth day of her Canada trip.’

Back in the UK

SarahAlderson

1 comment

June 27, 2011

Bird song Cool air South east accents (lots of fucking this fucking that) Pints of beer Kettle chips Roast lamb Strawberries and raspberries Croquet Beer bellies Bad fashion (I’m in the provinces) It’s light still at 7pm! Aggression Wine wine wine Goat’s cheese An English country garden complete with roses and um, I don’t know the name of any flowers but is there anything more beautiful than an English country garden? Other than possibly Ubud Botanical Garden after a pizza. A stack of shiny new books A duvet Carpet The Sunday papers Charity shopping Pavements you can scooter down (and not have to call sidewalks so people understand what you’re talking about) Smooth roads Hello magazine royal wedding supplement Washing up (sucks) Fish & Chips Grazia Magazine The proliferation of floral playsuits and soft white flesh

I do like being back in the UK. It’s a bit like living in a Larkin poem.

Women love

SarahAlderson

1 comment

June 22, 2011

I never was very good at having girl friends. I had an older brother, was more of a tomboy, hated my all girls’ school, am a Sagittarius…for whatever reason I made my way into my twenties with just a handful of girl friends to show for twenty years of living.

In my twenties I did better, I made three of my best friendships (Vic, Nic, Sara – thank you my lovelies) and even though 8,000 plus miles separate me from them it makes very little difference to how we feel about each other.

I didn’t expect to find in Bali a whole other type of female friend. In under a year I’ve met and become friends with some of the most phenomenal women I could ever hope to meet.

I think maybe it is easier here to make friends – we’re all ex-pats and generally the ex-pat community here is incredibly open and warm, I rarely experience the first of the boat mentality I’ve met in other places (Goa for example) and maybe it’s got something to do with the type of person who washes up here, but I’m starting to properly understand what women should be like to each other and how amazing it is when we are.

Sorry if I’m coming late to this party. But better late than never right?

It’s kind of an epiphany to me that women can be supportive, rather than competitive, that women can support and love one another without gossiping behind each other’s backs, that women can be powerful and strong without being bitches.

So living amongst women who every day inspire me with their energy, their positivity and their kindness is …well it’s one of the reasons that never made it onto the post-it board but is now one of the main reasons I love to live here.

Four Seasons

SarahAlderson

no comments

June 17, 2011

Everywhere we go we are watched. I feel furtive. As if a hand is about to fall on my shoulder and ask me please to come this way. I feel as if I’ve got a piece of priceless art stashed in my bikini (some might say I do, but you know I like to be modest).

I try to look like I belong. I lift my chin, roll my shoulders back, walk purposely, but still I feel their eyes on the back of my head, even following me into the ladies’ changing room, ostensibly to wipe the pristine marble surfaces but I know it’s just a ruse, that it’s leading to this….

‘You stay here long?’

‘Two nights.’

‘Oh yes?’ (fixed grin but the eyes are roaming to my flip flops thick with dust).

‘You like?’

‘Urhuh,’ I do like, other than feeling like I’m being trailed around Primark by an over-zealous security guard every time I step foot outside of my room.

And then, the final question in every conversation, ‘What room you stay in?’

At which point I think about saying, ‘Oh, I need to stay here to use the sauna / steam room / Jacuzzi / pool? Really?’

Instead I mumble, villa 9, then grab my things and slink back to my villa feeling their eyes on me still, even the gardeners. I don’t think they’re gardeners, I think they’re trained SAS operatives, put in amongst the rhododendrons to jump on anyone who isn’t a bonafide guest.

I wonder if they do this to Robert de Niro when he stays here.

Or Posh and Becks.

Bet they don’t.

They just do it to me. And to John.

I kind of wish they’d just take mugshots of me and circulate amongst the staff.

I get that it is because I don’t look chi chi rich. Or like Robert de Niro.

In the lobby I spot the wealthy Americans in their big hats, with their protractor arched eyebrows, Hermes bags (and not the fake ones) and gold bracelets as big as halos. I’m in my tatty old gap sundress, $1 flip flops, with my hair tied in a knot (forgot my brush), and holding a carrier bag. I can see why they feel the need to follow me into the bathroom. But still…

My friend Leila showed up for the afternoon to play. If I look like I don’t belong here, well, then Leila who usually dresses as if every day is Burning Man and she’s just arrived there from her sell out show supporting Lady Gaga in Vegas, really doesn’t look like she belongs here. But the joy of Leila and being with Leila is she doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of her. And it rubs off. Everyone should be more like Leila.

We sauna, we Jacuzzi, we use every lotion, potion, cotton bud, implement they have been foolish enough to leave out and about five hundred and twelve towels during our one hour in the spa. Then we come back and watch the Matrix on the supersize tv, whilst ordering French fries from room service and a brownie which costs $18 and which we send back after eating half (and all the ice-cream) because it really tastes like rubber and we know we can get better ones from Bali Buddha for just a dollar.

Under the stars we sit on the deck and Leila turns to me and says, ‘Woah, remember we said that our intention was by next new year we’d be super rich and celebrating new year at the Four Seasons?’

I stare at her and we have one of those moments where we realize our intention has come true six months early and ten times more impressively than we had even hoped for.

Ok, not the super rich part….YET. But we haven’t paid for this. I won a two night stay here on a raffle for which we were selling the tickets (shhhhh). There was no corruption involved.

Honest.

remember when we were raffle girls?!

We are a bit off our faces but we quickly make new intentions realizing that clearly we are magical beings who possess a direct line to the universe. A universe who wants to bestow wonderful things on us.

‘Quick,’ I say, ‘Let’s make more intentions. Because anything we want will clearly come true.’

This time I’m not going to wish for stuff I think I want. This time I know exactly what I want.

And it doesn’t involve being followed by beady eyed staff through lobbies of burnished wood.

Creative accounting and fringes

SarahAlderson

no comments

June 13, 2011

John asked me.

No, I told him I would.

Let’s get this straight.

I offered.

Because, given that we’ve run though my book advance as though it was on a self-destruct timer, we’re now living off him. And I’ve never lived off any man (other than my dad…thanks dad!). John paying for stuff – as in paying for everything – is totally novel. It’s taken a while to get used to and makes me distinctly uncomfortable…so uncomfortable I have cut my massage excess to just once a fortnight and resorted to cutting my own fringe.

Witness:

(with my two tone roots and my hacked fringe I could audition for a part in Eastenders.)

Even when I was on maternity I paid my way. I’ve always earned the same or more than John. I went to a school where we were indoctrinated with the belief girls could do anything better than boys. I’ve always believed that as a woman financial independence is paramount.

This having to rely on John has been a tough call for me…no really.

Really. (As she reaches for the ice-cream with one hand and speed dials the masseur with the other).

And so even though riches are of course – let’s not even worry about it, it’s bound to happen – coming to me in the form of book royalties, film deals, Barbie merchandising deals (I will have no ethics when they wave that cheque in my face) at the moment I’m broke, so my token gesture to say thanks to John for bearing the load is to offer to do his accounts.

Ahahahahahahahaahaha

The joke may be on him when it comes around to submitting accounts to the taxman.

I sat at my desk with his mountain of receipts and I thought ‘I can do this. Yeah, this is novel…oooh, now where’s excel…ok, spreadsheet thing how do you work again? Now um, right, um…what’s this symbol?’

And then after five minutes I got up and got some ice cream.

When I sat back down I started remembering my other life, when I used to run multi million pound projects. Yeah. I know. Mental right?

I used to play with numbers every day of my life. And I was good – I knew how far to play the creative accounting game (well, ok normally I would play it too far and our amazing finance director would arch his eyebrow in my direction and I would wheedle and then come up with some great creative expression for him to use in exec meetings and then it would all be fine). I kind of miss those days where I could bullshit over a spreadsheet almost as though I was gearing up for a future life creating paranormal young adult novels.

But still, as I sit here buried under a mountain of receipts (with an empty g&t glass beside me) I do shake my head in wonder that I actually used to do this as part of a 9-5 job. Urgh, is all I can say. Once more I am reminded of how spectacular life is these days.

And I’ve only managed to tally up two months’ worth and I’m bored already. John won’t let me be creative with his receipts (why can’t we submit massages and pilates lessons as a work expense?)

Time to play on facebook and twitter. I do so like my life. Have I mentioned that already?