Guernsey is Inescapable

One of the things I was particularly looking forward to about London was the sense of anonymity. In Guernsey, you see someone you know around every corner, and that leads to a sense of feeling watched & judged, and having to perform and conform 100% of the time you’re out in public. Obviously, I hated that, but I thought London would be different.

And obviously it is, by and large. But I have already bumped into three people from Guernsey that I know, and I’ve only been here 15 days. The first was the brother of someone in my year at school - we were in a climbing gym and he was wearing a mask, so I stared at him for a solid 15 minutes trying to confirm his identity without being able to see his nose or mouth. It turns out people’s noses and mouths are often their distinguishing features, and now he definitely thinks I’m some kind of creepy, stare-y lunatic. The second was one of my best friend’s sisters as I was walking through Vauxhall; we went round opposite sides of a tree before both double taking and realising that actually is who we thought it was. The third came today as I was walking home along the river from Covent Garden, and enjoying a waterside pint is my old debating cup partner from school. He doesn’t look like he’s aged a day in the last ten years, and sadly hasn’t grown out of the whole tweed jacket thing yet, meaning I doubt he ever will.

Admittedly the second two weren’t unpleasant, but still. The possibility remains that if I am out doing something particularly rogue, it still might get fed back to the Guernsey grapevine. Maybe I’ll simply have to move further afield; Japan is tempting.