This might sound crazy, seeing as a lot of my friends live in London AND I survived moving to Shanghai by myself, but finally fulfilling my long-term plan of moving to the big smoke hasn’t been as smooth as I thought it would be.

Firstly, arranging a catch-up with a fellow Londoner friend gets complicated by the fact that to get from one area of London to another can take over an hour door-to-door. Also, the weeks seem to fly by at such a rate that you might as well book a night out with your mates weeks in advance to make sure it actually goes ahead!

Anyway, I keep hearing about all these websites for young professionals in London who are looking to make new friends. It’s not as though I can just walk into a bar by myself and expect to meet genuine, nice people… but then neither am I going to meet people sitting at home in my flat! The problem is that these sites all want you to pay your hard-earned cash just so send a quick message to people who you can’t even guarantee are going to be potential friends in the future.

I still haven’t actually met any of my neighbours properly and the only person I can guarantee seeing on a daily basis is the guy at the train station who checks my travelcard! There’s so much to do in this city! I’m a few minutes walk away from Kensington High Street and Notting Hill, can walk to Shepherd’s Bush/Westfield, am twenty minutes to central London and in just over an hour I can be in the beautiful Windsor.

One thing that’s perking up my mood however is the fact that the arctic chill is slowly loosening its hold on London. I’m so excited to start wearing outfits other than big jumpers, jeans and scarves! Maybe it’s a coincidence, but my current absolute favourite songs is such a positive and completely Spring-appropriate tune – You’ve gotta love these lyrics!

Another song stuck in my head over and over is this infectious song from Johnny Flynn, called Tickle Me Pink:

Now that I have a job I can shop guilt-free (or at least that’s the idea!)…. on my wishlist: