One thing i thought i was going to find difficult was selling our house. Over the past year i have often dreamt of it – It seemed at times to contain my whole life and anchor to what and who i was.
Strangely what you dread is often easy, having gone through all the emotions beforehand i felt detached and just thought how it simply wasn’t worth staying for. London house prices have gone bonkers so it does feel like we might have burnt our bridges if we want to come back…..
Most of my friends are Artists and meeting up with them after a year away i could see how hard London is on creative folk. Many of them struggling financially to keep up , i got the sense that everything was hanging by a thread to survive with the cuts – Art classes being cut and courses closing – huge intakes of foreign paying students changing the face of our MA courses and PHDs simply because their English is not up to that level.
My gallery in deptford was complaining that their were too many pop up shows and that the market is saturated sales were down . It did feel like that – too much, too much and no quality. I was left cold by most of the shows i saw ( check out the art blog for more ). What i did enjoy was the friends who showed up with biscuits and tea whilst we did our yard sale – the neighbours who got us drunk the night before moving ( i dont recommend it ) and throwing stuff away !! things we had saved for years to do something with. I realised that most of my furniture had come from the streets of london for free and now i was giving it all back – it felt good !
My husband painted over the sold sign with HSBC globaliser yard sale – which didn’t go down well with the estate agents but it was our final act. Too busy to be sad the boys said goodbye easily too exhausted so did we
. Ben Burns fire poem