One month down, struggling to sit still.

I've come to the end of my first month in London and, significantly, the end of my first box of Scott's Porage Oats. A box so seemingly abundant that I was starting to suspect someone had been filling it back up with more oats each night as a prank. Which would be a hilarious prank for anyone's morning cereal that I encourage you to try out.

Here's a comprehensive list of all the things I can't do on a belly full of oats:

1. Complain.

It's human super-fuel (or perhaps super-human fuel) and has kept me warm and my legs spinning while cycling through some of London's drizzliest, stormiest weather.

This also marks the longest time I've spent unbroken in one (foreign) country. My border hopping days will come again soon but for now I'm trying to adjust to a more sedentary pace and I must confess, I'm rather struggling with it.

I have a morning routine with the same cereal. I paid rent the other day. I frequently turn up and work for a company. My bicycle sleeps indoors. I know the names of all the people in the building I'm sleeping in. I'm sleeping in a building! There are currently 11 of us - 4 Kiwis, 2 Italians, 2 Lithuanians, 2 Spanish and 1 French - So it feels rather like a hostel. That may sound like a crowded cesspit but it's a spacious, 3 storey home with a large kitchen and dining area and we enjoy each other's company in the evenings.

This is my house

There are many like it

But this one is mine

The view outside my bedroom window

The days of cycling through new parts of Europe every day and living out of my hammock tent are close to my heart, but a few months behind me. I'm itching to get going again but won't do so until May when a posse I'm forming and I will travel down the Rhine.

Instead of packing my saddle bags with everything I own each morning, I'm packing trucks full of other people's belongings. And doing a damn fine job, might I add.

Not your average knots

I was barely trying here. This truck is a long way from full.

I've been losing the sense of journey that I usually enjoy while away and this has had me fretting, because I want life to be a journey wherever I'm at. I have a deep fear of eventually returning to New Zealand and having the "journey" finish completely. Learning to retain that sense of progress in my lifestyle here seems vitally important to being able to carry it on one day back at home.

It really comes down to a matter of perspective and I've had to shake myself out of some gloom lately and push myself to go and do things here in London. Having a home is dangerous because I can just sit around inside it moping. Each time I kick myself out of the door and say, "Go and do something!" it usually turns out really well and I start to wonder what I was complaining about.

I went and saw a musical the other night based on one of my favourite movies, "Once." In it, a handsome singer-songwriter (who I find I can identify with) finds himself stagnant and moping around Dublin, giving up on all of his dreams. A girl comes along and shakes him out of his mournful reverie and gets him living again before they part ways. Still waiting on my girl, but it reiterated to me that there's always something going on, people to connect with, passions to pursue, and that life is an unbroken sequence of transitional phases, so don't allow yourself to take a turn on the bench, believing that you're waiting to get somewhere, you ARE somewhere, all the time. Enjoy it.

Here's me enjoying wonderful things, like...

Capturing evidence of a vandal down on Brick Lane, London's curry shop street.

Being the first to photograph the entrance to the British History Museum.

Feeling intimidated by a nose-less Pharaoh face. 

Admiring a blend of new and old architecture.

Admiring a blend of new and old architecture.

Staring at the sea, wistfully wishing it would whisk me away to distant things beginning with W.

Taking a brochure-worthy photo of an old dock-side inn in Portsmouth. I love these.

I hear tales of abundant fruit trees lavishing upon my family's house back in One Tree Hill. It just sounds so wonderful and I'm reminded that in the trade-off of being away, I'm missing much at home, so all the more reason for me to make the most of where I'm at.

I've found a singing tutor here and had a few great lessons. I've popped into 2 open mic nights now. Neither was quite the venue I require... One had the soccer (football here) playing right next to the stage so half the people present were listening to the artists and the other half were drunk and erupting in raucous cheering and insults to the ref, somewhat disconcerting when you're performing to have a crowd scream, "NOOOOO!!!" while you're mid-verse and someone call out, "You fucking idiot!"

The other gig was at the "Electric Social" where there was an odd mix of a country singing couple, a rapper with backing track, a really dark poet (her first poem was called "Fuck You"), a normal enough guitar guy, a crazy hard dance DJ whose face or even skin I never saw because he wore a black mask, red hoody, gloves and track-pants and what I'm going to call giant space shoes. Oh and there was me with my banjo, trying to find my place among it. If anyone knows of any more quintessentially folk clubs in London, let me know.

I leave you with this alluring add for Icelandic tourism that's been all over the tube lately.

Hence the term.