AboutLondon Laura – October 2024

I always ask this first, but did you try any of my recommendations from last month? I enjoyed Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery.

I was fortunate to see the exhibition before climate activists threw tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings. It happened on 27 September, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.

I’m planning to see Discover Constable & The Hay Wain at the National Gallery this month. In 2022, activists pasted their own version of The Hay Wain over the famous painting before glueing themselves to the frame.

While I am sympathetic to the climate activists’ cause, apart from the publicity created, I can’t see how this helps. I expect we’ll have increased security at the National Gallery from now on.

When Is It The Right Time To Leave London?

I moved to London as a teenager and fully embraced city life. I worked hard and played hard and loved all the city had to offer. I came from an Essex town and I craved the anonymity the capital could offer. (I didn’t want to get home and get a phone call from a friend saying, “I saw you down the town” yet they hadn’t said hello at the time.) It might explain why I moved so often initially (25 moves in 5 years). But those moves helped me get to know London more.

As London quickly felt like home, I explored, discovered and learned. It’s a city that keeps on giving. I went to museums and galleries often as well as restaurants and nightclubs. I met new people, strong friendships were made and we’ve grown up together.

My daughter has lived her whole life in London and has now left for university. For many years, I wrote about ‘free things to do in London’ and ‘London with kids’ and my words and pictures were the top Google search results for years. I knew my stuff as this was what I did every day in the city I loved.

But I’m wondering if it’s time to leave London. A house is for sale near my best friend in Wales.

(Image is illustrative only.)

As I spend more time at home these days, I could just as easily be indoors in a different location. I have some health issues that mean I can’t get out and about as much and I work from home so only need wifi and my laptop to do what I do.

While housing is the biggest cost worry for many Londoners, I bought my home cheaply a long time ago so I don’t have a mortgage. But it has increased in value so much that it actually makes it a bad decision to sell it due to Capital Gains Tax. The answer then is to rent it out to fund the move to Wales. And holding on to a London home means I could always return.

The pandemic caused a big shift from London living for many as they wanted more access to ‘nature’. As I have a small garden here that never worried me and I embraced walking in Epping Forest. In west Wales, I would be near the beach but there would be those awful single-track roads to contend with to get there.

When younger I had less fear in those ‘edgy’ areas of town but now I just avoid them. My neighbourhood has turned into a hipster haven but I’ve been here long enough to still feel the dark undercurrent of bad things happening.

London is part of my identity as I’ve been ‘About London’ or ‘London Laura’ for decades. When I first bought my house, friends from across the world would come to stay as we all loved having a London base. But it doesn’t happen often these days as everyone has settled down.

My house can be cold but I’m a bit stingy with turning on the heating so it’s swings and roundabouts. My concerns about a move are I don’t want it to be dark, damp and cold as those are the things that will make me miserable. But the house I’m considering has gas central heating, underfloor heating and a log burner. And while the ceilings are lower (it’s a Georgian property) there still seemed to be enough daylight getting inside.

It’s an end-of-terrace house which is great as I do prefer things to be quiet at home. I’ve already got an end-of-terrace house but my neighbours can be loud. Not the ‘constant music’ type of loud but ‘screaming at each other without warning at any time of day or night’ type of loud. I joke that when I stay with my best friend and her five children I sleep better there than I do here. I think some of that is the tension of never knowing when the next scream will come through the walls and knowing those screams mean aggression (whereas my friend’s children are generally the happy type of loud).

I would miss London culture as, while I’m no longer embracing the nightlife, I do enjoy the museums and galleries. I hope I would still travel back regularly to see friends and combine those trips with the best new exhibitions.

So, nothing’s definite but I’m looking into the idea. I’d love to hear from you if you too are having these internal debates or if you went for it and left London. How’s that working out for you? Well, I hope.

What’s Happening This Month?

Lots of my September recommendations are still good for October. I’m going to see Yayoi Kusama: EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE in a few weeks at Victoria Miro (love those dots!), and Discover Constable & The Hay Wain at the National Gallery – the first exhibition to explore the social, political and artistic context of the English landscape at the time of The Hay Wain’s production.

Around the corner at the National Portrait Gallery, from 10 October, Francis Bacon: Human Presence will be the first exhibition in nearly 20 years to place its focus on the artist’s portraits. We’ll get to see more than 55 works from the 1950s onwards exploring Francis Bacon’s deep connection to portraiture and how he challenged traditional definitions of the genre.

Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London opens at the Fashion and Textile Museum on 4 October. The exhibition focuses on 1985 when the legendary nightclub Taboo was opened by designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery. It was a tiny club in the corner of Leicester Square that lasted barely a year, yet it brought together an extraordinary explosion of fashion designers, artists, writers, performers and filmmakers.

I was a fashion student in the ‘80s and I adored Boy George and Leigh Bowery so fully expect to love this exhibition. I remember seeing the Michael Clark Dance Company when I was 16, and the downstairs galleries focussing on squat life and London markets will bring back memories.

Mire Lee is creating the next large-scale installation for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall which will be on show from 9 October.

The British Museum has Hew Locke: what have we here? from 17 October. The renowned Guyanese-British artist turns his lens on the British Museum collections in a collaborative exhibition exploring histories of British imperial power.

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words opens at the British Library on 25 October. It explores the challenges, achievements and daily lives of women in Europe from 1100 to 1500.

The World of Tim Burton opens at the Design Museum on 25 October. This major exhibition invites visitors into his world through an exploration of his unique aesthetic universe. While most well-known for his cinematic work, the show displays the full extent of his production as an illustrator, painter, photographer, and author, as well as exploring some of the key collaborations which helped shape his world.

And finally, in north London at the Freud Museum, Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists opens on 30 October. It’ll highlight the women of Freud’s life including those who visited him in Hampstead. The exhibition, which runs throughout Freud’s home, includes unseen Paula Rego work, as well as Louise Bourgeois, Sarah Lucas, Rachel Kneebone, Tracey Emin, Cornelia Parker and more.