Dirty Pretty Things Irish Tour

2:43 on the 453 to Deptford Bridge. 24 hour buses are my saviours multiple times a week. The Christmas lights on Regent Street always make me smile in a state of sobriety; intoxicated they make my eyes blur and dance. Same with the London Eye. When I first moved here it used to change colour every night. Then, it stuck with green for a while. It made me sad to not have a new colour to gaze upon after a night out in Central. The best time I've seen the Eye at night was when I came back from Ireland and was squashed against the window on the packed out bus. I felt miserable and tired - I'd left behind friends and memories, the end of an era was drawing near and to top it off, I was pressed against glass for 45 minutes just so I could get home to the Penthouse and the grimy New Cross streets - but then I saw the constantly changing colours spinning around the wheel. That's when it felt good to be home.

My aforementioned trip to the Emerald Isle was one of the best weeks of my life. A whole 5 days with friends I seldom see, going on adventures and planning more to keep ourselves warm in bus shelters at 3am. A supporting cast of beautiful people and a few from the other end of the spectrum too. It is exactly a month today since we boarded the plane to Dublin, me having almost decided not to go due to lack of funds and a night of no sleep. In the end, it would have been worth missing sleep for a month and having no money for a year.

So I returned, missing Irish rivers, long coach journeys and the constant unpredictable happenings that would occur in every new town. I became even more disillusioned with my programme of study and stopped caring about getting up in the morning. I stayed up all night and slept all day. Ate plates of lettuce leaves and not much else. Smoked too many cigarettes and consumed too many drugs. Found the bottom of the bottle held not the answer but more of the problem. Continued with the bi-weekly minor emotional breakdowns until things started to come good again. Stared at photos of all I'd left behind. Decorated my room with postcards, posters and posers and listened to fireworks raining down outside. Opened post and shut my eyes, dreamt of places far away. I didn't want to leave London, just the timetable I was meant to be following.