dizzojay | 100 days of Happiness

Here's something that always makes me happy ...

... LONDON.

I'm a London girl. I was born in London, just across the road from the Oval Cricket Ground to be precise, and I chose the picture above because it was taken in 1968, the year I was born.

I lived at the famous Elephant and Castle district of London (the same region that my parents both come from) until my family moved away when I was ten, so - you do the maths - it's been a long time since then, and I never fail to be amazed by the changes that have gone on in the city over the years. I go back to London for various reasons maybe six or eight times a year, and every time I go, some new building or new street seems to have sprung up out of nowhere! I've even got lost in places I thought I knew well !!

Although I haven't lived in London for many years, my heritage is 100% London. My family's trade was the print, specifically on the national newspapers in the heady days of Fleet Street. My Dad, and five of my uncles were Fleet Street printers at one time. My great Grandfather was a costermonger in Covent Garden in the fifties. my grandmother was a clippie and my Grandad was an inspector on the London Buses. My great Grandmother ran a pub called the Bridge House at the foot of Vauxhall Bridge until the sixties.

The legend goes that a few drops of the Thames runs through the veins of every Londoner, and I have no doubt that I have my few drops, and maybe then some! I love London with a fiery passion. I love it's vibrancy and diverse character; I love its hustle and bustle, its history and its architecture, and above all I'm fiercely proud of my family's heritage.

So yes, today's happy post is the old smoke, my roots, my hometown, London.

Yes, and I have been a pearly queen!