The Nissan Invasion

So I know it isn't really blogworthy, especially considering that this is my first post in over a month, and the previous post was rubbish at that, and was the first since January. But anyway, this red Nissan has been parked - illegally - right outside my main front door since Monday.



The first picture shows my front door, where the red arrow is pointing. The second one is taken from my bedroom window. (I apologize for the quality of the pictures - taken with my Sony Ericsson K610i without flash.)

As you can see, I live on a tiny little street - a glorified alley, really - and so it's taking up a lot of space. What's strange is that the car window is open and the doors are unlocked. It's had a traffic ticket since Tuesday morning. But it's still there. Nobody really seems to know why. When I left my place at 10am this morning there was a guy from the Camden Council inspecting the car and I told him it's been there since Monday which he took note of but I was in a hurry so didn't bother to ask him what the deal was. It's kind of intriguing, to me at least. Plus it's generating quite a bit of conversation in the "neighbourhood".

And that leads me to something else. I live right smack-dab in the middle of central London. I live amidst the bustling city streets "where the cars never stop going through the night". And yet, what I love about my little area is that it really is a tiny itty-bitty community. I live on a tiny street just off two enormously main streets. But that little street is a neighbourhood unto itself. When I walk out my front door in the morning it is rare for me to go either left or right to either of the two main streets without saying good morning to at least one person. The guys who run the electronics store underneath me are my buddies. They come up to help me with my wiring when I need it and I get invited to their Christmas parties. The people at the café on the corner have learned how I like my morning coffee: my "usual". Heck, even the homeless guy on our street is like family. The café people know him, the pub people know him, and everyone in between stops for a chat with him. When I come home late I night, I feel a million times safer when I see him there. And if I come home earlier in the evening, the guys unloading the new stock for one of the stores of the main street, that has their loading dock on our little alley, stop to chat with me and ask me how my PhD is coming along. It's a sweet little community. Eclectic, but safe...home...despite the city rumble.

When I walked out my front door yesterday and saw the Nissan still blocking my way, the guy standing across my little street smoking a cigarette looked at me and said, "It's still here." We laughed. We'd never spoken before. I only knew him because his office window is directly across from my bedroom window. But in that moment, with the Nissan between us, I loved the feeling of familiarity within the anonymity of the city.

That is something I'm going to miss terribly when I move back to Kuwait in August.