Greetings from sunny England! The weather’s quite pleasantly gangbusters over here, especially after hauling ass from Melbourne where it was becoming a bit monotonously freezing.

Though I had to laugh when reading an article about their apparent “heatwave”, when it blathered on about the weather hitting the extraordinary heights of 27.8C. Really don’t do much to dispel the myths, eh?

It was stuffy, mind – no bugger has air conditioning here, it’s not really a wise investment – which made my wait at customs excruciating. I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to clear passport control in this post-tube bomb UK. I was in queue for over an hour, shunted into the ‘All other passports’ queue like some kind of refugee. And it didn’t help that I was in the middle of the dodgiest group of Arab-looking people, who were getting the full terror treatment at the front of the line – mainly because they all held multiple passports, didn’t speak any English and would just push in front as they pleased.

Obviously I did finally clear and get out of the airport, and it’s all going well here s’far – am staying with my mate Cara in Notting Hill Gate, which is right around the corner from the pub I used to live in for anyone who’s keeping track.

It’s really highlighted how scant my memories of the place are though – I thought that I had the whole area’s geography licked, had the journey from the tube station to Cara’s entirely mapped in my head. In my head, it went: tube station / Crispin’s / pub / Cara’s. I must have forgotten about the, oh I don’t know, twenty other stores and landmarks on the way.

It’s the same with the tube – I had a grandiose vision of stepping off the plane and on to the tube, and hurtling myself down the Central line to pop up right where I wanted to be. Caught the tube for a year and a half, after all. Must’ve have forgotten that it was, in fact, the Piccadilly line that goes to Heathrow, and not the Central. May sound incredibly minor to you, but when you’re trying to pass yourself off as a bon fide London knowledge base at home (which I’ve sadly done many times), it really does kick you in the balls.