Goodbye Leyton, Hello Fitzrovia!

KATY HARRINGTON

There comes a time in a girl’s life when she must move out of a sh*tty house share in East London (Leyton to be exact… which my friend nicknamed Lame-ton) and move into a totally unaffordable, but totally amazing one-bed apartment in swanky Central London. For this girl, that time is now. And so, on a Friday evening, jacked up on lady petrol (Prosecco), I start pulling dresses, socks, jeans, towels, sheets and other threadbare items such as my pyjama pants (which any other decent human would shred and use as dusters) out of their hiding places. This, ladies and germs, is how idiots pack. For an hour, it rains clothes in my room as I gleefully empty the contents of every chest and wardrobe until there are piles of clothes covering every inch of my room. “I realise moving house is supposed to be stressful, but I’m finding it strangely cathartic,” I smugly text my friend who has also recently moved, knowing full well that it reduced him to a joyless puddle of sweat. ‘What a wonderful time in my life this is’, I think, ‘a chance to turn over a new leaf ’. I shall rid myself of unwanted material goods (anything Topshop purchased pre-2012), and host wonderful dinner parties in my new home where everyone drinks Beaujolais and I wear a kimono. Maybe I’ll finally learn how not to hate jazz. A few hours later I realise while pulling things apart is fun, putting them back is boring (a view I share with many toddlers) so I decide it would be fine, advisable even, to leave the house for a few sociables to appease my boredom. I return 24 hours later, a few hours before my ‘man with a van’ is due to call, and look at the mess I have created. Exhausted, and let’s be honest, pretty well oiled, I fall asleep on a pile of clothes and hangers. I know because when the doorbell rings, I have the imprint of the latter on my cheek.