from north London canals to west London party-crashing

This morning we made the long trek to Islington for lunch, dragging along a big duffel bag full of camping equipment to drop off at Vida’s flat. It certainly made the ride more interesting, with three separate tube rides and unusually crowded trains, but we managed it. James and I hauled it up to Vida’s while Bill, Jim, and Ben grabbed our table at the Tamil Crown pub. Vida was too cozy in her bathrobe to be tempted into joining us, so James and I headed to the pub hungry for an Indian lunch.

Thanks to my solo dining experience there recently I knew a few great things to order and then our excellent server gave us a bunch of other recommendations. We worked our way through every phenomenal dish and a round of great drinks, mango lassis included. Even Ben, normally sensitive to spicy foods, was happy and devoured his personal order of coconut rice. Properly full from feasting, we headed out into the sunshine to walk a couple of blocks towards the gates of the canals and then down to the walking path along it.

The towpath was busy and there was lots of interesting activity, like a canal boat passing through the lock. It was our first time seeing someone take a boat through a self-operated lock, cranking the levers to open the gates and letting the water slowly drop to the lower level with the boat descending down. Then it moved onwards but I guess something had gone wrong with the lock because the next boat that came through had a whole team of people trying to crank it back but it just wouldn’t go. At that point we continued walking a bit along the canal (spotting a sunken Lime bike) and eventually south to a tube station that connected us back to the District line to head home.

Bill and Jim had stopped at some kind of flagship-quality M&S by Victoria station a few days ago, so I convinced James to hop off with me there to check it out, as well as pick up a few things for dinner. Even though there weren’t a ton of products we hadn’t seen before there were definitely a few, and the design of the store and layout were a huge level up from a normal M&S. James judged me for impulse-buying a cake but I also impulse-bought some very beautiful and healthy-looking strawberries which of course I never ended up eating. And the cake was disappointing. But the tube ride home was fun thanks to a brief conversation with a woman dressed up in traditional Norwegian garb for Norway’s Constitution Day, as well as a woman in a watermelon-themed hat and Palestinian flag who was curious to learn more about it.

Bill cooked up a salmon dinner while James, Jim, and I (with Bill peeking in during cooking breaks) watched Game 5 of the 2010 World Series. It was such fun that James even played the full 22 minute video of the post-game celebration and lead-up to the big parade a few days later. Meanwhile Ben had spotted some neighboring kids outside playing hockey and finally gathered up the courage to join them, which they welcomed. Eventually we ate dinner and then watched some Seinfeld, and all said goodnight and goodbye to Jim who leaves our house at the painful hour of 5am. Fortunately he’ll likely avoid any traffic on his way to the airport! Everyone else went to bed shortly after and I changed into pajamas myself.

As I was sitting in the kitchen I could hear loud dance music from somewhere nearby, and got curious enough to throw on a pair of shoes and step outside to see where it was coming from. Our block is usually so quiet but it was quickly obvious that a house a couple doors down was having a party. Just as I was pausing in front of it the door opened and a young man was walking someone to a waiting uber, and turned to me to say hi. So I said hi. I think he was worried that I was a complaining neighbor so I reassured him, “it’s fine, I just heard music, I was curious!” And then he insisted, “well, you have to come see the party.” I argued with him for a minute but he was insistent so I said ok.

I went back into my house, threw a decent-looking shirt on over my pajamas, and grabbed the most atrocious bottle of liquor from my cabinet (something leftover from Passover) as a friendly offering. The guy, Karl, welcomed me in and introduced me to my two neighbors, Adam and Carla, who I’d never met or even seen before: a young man and woman from Paris who are brother and sister living in this nice house in Chiswick. They explained that most of the people here knew each other from secondary school, which I gleaned could not have been very long ago. They were all friendly and welcoming of an American mom briefly crashing their party, so I stayed for a bit and watched the horrified faces of those who dared to try the liquor.

Carla noticed the “Kosher for Passover” label on the liquor and said, “you’re Jewish! Us too!” and we had a spirited conversation about lots of things, including our shared love of Parisian patisserie. It was fun to meet a bunch of young adults living in Chiswick, and just when I was really confused about why they were living in Chiswick they all started getting ready to catch cars to head to a club somewhere else, which made a lot of sense. During my last conversation as they were getting ready to go, Carla’s boyfriend answered my question about why they were all from so many different places (France, Belgium, Spain, Libya, Algeria, and more) by explaining that they all met at an international school.

“Just that way,” he pointed and I swear I went white. “The . . . International School of London? In Gunnersbury?” “Yes, you know it?” “Um yes, my kids go there,” and I was way more upset by this than they were. Amidst the chaos of their getting ready to go to the club I bolted and walked the quick 20 seconds to my door, closing it behind me like some kind of time travel vortex was after me. Even though the whole situation was unexpectedly fun and weird, it’s genuinely nice to see that the relationships forged at that school can last! I definitely hope that my kids will one day be partying with their ISL alumni friends and be kind enough to invite a random neighborhood mom to join.