Some town in London

Hello, readers! Not much happening this quiet Tuesday. I'm sitting outside of a coffee shop, having just partaken in an awful habit I've taken on that I am not proud of: my daily afternoon coffee and a Danish :-/ it's just so good!

Anyways, as I was walking in our little neighborhood today to run some errands, I was thinking of my mom. She says that you know you are in a legit small Texas town if it has a dollar store and a Dairy queen ( along with, of course, a gas station, usually a no named shack of a restaurant, and if it's not dry, a liquor store).

As I was walking to the butcher, I couldn't help but compare this observation to every small town/ neighborhood in London. Every neighborhood has a high street, some only a block long, some much larger. And, you know that you are in a small London neighborhood, if it has:

1. Tescos-Some call it a grocery store, I call is a convenience store. I always leave disappointed because they don't carry what I came in for

2. Cafe rouge- a French food chain that is literally in every neighborhood

3. A flower stand

4. A butcher shop, usually organic (today I had a lovely conversation with our tattooed butcher about his sweet little sick dog as he was weighing our organic spicy lamb sausage and beef patties. Side note- it is really hard to determine how much you are spending when things are sold in £ by the kilo)

5. Bank

6. And, most importantly, a pub. Some dingy hole in the walls, some in gorgeous old homes. We love pubs. They are so different than bars. It is normal for people to both bring their dogs and bring their families. They are very low key, you don't have to get dressed up, you don't have to worry at all about being hit on. They close at 11 and ask that you leave quietly out of respect for the neighborhood, and people do, because it's their neighborhood. You are just as likely to find a pair of grandpas playing cards and enjoying a pint as you are to find a young couple with a child as you are to find people with their laptops working. And people are there as early as 10 am, no joke. 

Bonus points if the neighborhood has a coffee shop, post office, tube station, and an Oxfam :-) 

But I love how even though we are in one of the largest cities in the world, I can't help but feel like somehow and in some ways, it ain't that big in our little pocket of London.