"best of london"

I’ve written about music a few times on this site; specifically, the music I listen to when I travel as well as a list of songs to listen to when you’re homesick. To me, music and travelling go hand in hand. I’m either surrounded by the music of the country I’m in, or, on long bus journeys or train rides, I’m listening to my own favourites through my headphones.

But there are some great songs that are about travelling themselves, ones that either capture what it feels like to be on the road, or perhaps ones that inspire you to get up and go. When I first started making this list of travel songs, or songs about travelling, these were the ones I wrote down first – perhaps inspired by the fact that I finally purchased a record player here in London (even though I have three in Canada) and brought back 30 of my favourite albums, they are all of a certain time. I don’t believe that this was intentional, but I hope you can agree that these are some damn good travel songs. In no particular order, here are some of what I consider the best travel songs.

Everyone is dancing wildly, their clothes drenched in sweat. I see at least five women wearing butterfly wings; most people wear technicolour outfits, and have faces painted with glitter. I take another sip of my coffee, then snap a photo on my phone for Instagram. The time reads 7:14am. This is not your ordinary rave.

To summarise East London as trendy and simply leave it at that would be undermining the area. There are so many cool things to do and so many great places to hang out; I started to list all my favourite places (markets, restaurants, galleries) and I realised that the list of cafés was astoundingly long. Simply put, East London has a lot of really good places to go for coffee and/or breakfast. If you live in London, you might know a few of these; either way, if you live here or you’re just visiting, I recommend all of the following cafés. In my eyes, they’re the best cafés in East London. You may or may not find me writing in one of them on any given afternoon.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Katrina from Eating London about joining one of their tours. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed that I haven’t accepted many tours or trips; it’s just a personal thing. After reading Tom’s post about the same tour, though, and when I realised that the tour would take place in my neighbourhood, East London, I became very, very intrigued. Since moving to London I’ve decided that I’d like to do a bit more “backyard blogging”, which is writing about the place in which you live. As I live in the best city on earth, and in the best neighbourhood in the best city on earth, this means writing a lot more about East London and how much this part of town has to offer.

In other years, I’ve written reviews like 2021: The Worst… I Mean, the Best Year of My Life (a general summary) or ones featuring certain words that meant a lot to me that year or, way back in the day, month by month. For this one, I thought I’d divide it into certain topics, those pillars of my life that make me me: motherhood, writing/work, lifestyle, travel, dating, and mental health. Let’s just say some topics will be juicier than others, hah.

So, without further ado, here is my review of 2024.

Have I completely and utterly fucked up? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself this question. It’s usually late at night, the witching hour, as I lie in bed staring at shadows on my ceiling.

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I don’t know why – I traditionally think of myself as a pretty good sleeper – but now that I think of it, maybe I haven’t slept well in years. Maybe part of this is being a single parent to a newborn/baby/toddler, the only one to get up every night when needed (which, until he was about one, was every hour on the hour). Maybe part of this might be perimenopause, something I’ve been researching a bit more as I turned 40 (oh right. I turned 40. I’m sure I’ll write about that one day).

But a big part? A really, really big part of the reason I can’t sleep? It’s because I feel like I’ve thrown all of this away. I feel like I’ve fucked up one of the things I’ve loved the most in my life, one of the only constants in my life over the past two decades.

Yep, I’m talking about this blog.