Over my shoulder (part 1)

It's interesting how much of my social life has focused around the Archway/Finsbury park/Holloway area over recent years. First, it was Nic/Dom/Selina/Tom/Chloe/Guy/etc etc etc moving into Criterion Mews, a mere stone throw away form Archway. So we would all pile round to get drunk and get ready to go to Stay Beautiful and Rockabaret and Fori3gn (can I just say right now, how much I always HATED For3ign? Twattish, elitist, pretentious (and not in a good way), irritating, rubbish music...) and probably various other over-the-top club nights (what was that vaguely disco-ish one that Xavior ran in some digny basement room that we only went to once?). We were all young and romantic and idealistic and there were unspoken battles between alpha females and flowers and peacock feathers in every corner and it was all charming and glittery and endearingly ridiculous (though of course it didn't seem that way at the time). Then I started going out with David, who lives on the corner of Tollington way. I grew up a lot over the time we were together, though there was still a lot of drama. Again, it was a slightly ridiculous house- I would often stumble into the kitchen at bed time to get a glass of water, and find a bunch of 18 year olds, in impeccable 1960's vintage outfits, snorting 3 different kinds of drugs at once, and various older goths ambling in and out clutching bottles of Jack Daniels. I always wondered how Kitler, the prettiest grumpiest tabby I have ever met, put up with living in such a noisy environment, especially as she hated all humans (Richard excepted). I remember one night haveing the most epic kitchen party ever, being dragged to bed by David at around 8 am, with me protesting that I couldn't go to bed, as there were still songs left that I hadn't danced to that night/morning. I was very intoxicated at the time. And then his and mine relationship gradually fell disintegrated. And now, moving a bit further down on Holloway road, my current not-boyfriend is living.

I wonder why so many of the important people in my life have lived in this area? Is it something to do the rent rates? the local music scene? magnetic fields? And why do they keep moving a bit further down the hill, away from Archway station each time? Getting the 263 to the end of the route is like being thrown a live hand grenade of nostalgia. I wonder if I will end up living there myself? Probably not. Too many memories.

Hmm.