Well, I’ve been in London for 3 days now and so far I’ve been robbed, sworn at, bruised by hail, frozen by snow and soaked by puddles. I love this city.

5 days ago I boarded a plane in Christchurch airport and spent the next 32 hours in a timeless, cultureless, germ-filled vacuum. Then I woke up in London.

I have never been to London before but it turns out I know a LOT about it. Every 5 minutes I find myself excitedly crying out, ‘Oh I know that place – it’s on the Monopoly board!’ Monday was my tourist day. I awoke to watch small grey squirrels fighting over courtyard fodder outside my accommodation. I got off the tube at Buckingham Palace and walked amongst the throngs of fellow camera-happys past the giant gates and erect soldiers, under famous monuments covered in pigeons and through St James Park and big-beaked pelicans to arrive in Trafalgar Square. From there, a wander down The Strand found me finally away from the tourists and in tightly packed crowds of locals on work day pedestrian commute. Covent Garden was the eventual destination, where I was overly-pleased to see the familiar face of Kiwi comedian busker, Sam Wills performing in the square.

After lunch in Chinatown, I wandered around Soho pleasantly lost. By late afternoon, I had well and truly hit the jet lag wall and desperately fell into the closest cafe I could find to sit and re-hydrate. In my exhausted state, I left my bag unattended for about 1 minute beside my seat. In that minute, I felt the presence of someone sitting in the seat behind me which very quickly disappeared again. My spidey senses alerted, I checked my bag and found my wallet missing.

I am staying with my good friends Haydn and Stasa in Herne Hill. Haydn, like a good little Virgo, had spent his Monday at work researching to find the best Indian Restaurant in Brick Lane. It turned out that the best of the best wasn’t actually on Brick Lane but a few blocks away and was a Pakistan restaurant so famously good that they do not accept bookings and have lines out the door every night of the week! We wandered out of the East London tube station and quickly found ourselves in the heart of what is now a predominantly Muslim area. In front of a giant Mosque, teems of white-robed men were herded inside through gender-separated entrances for an evening service. Behind the mosque was a narrow street with multi-language street signs and newer apartment buildings than I had seen in London – Stasa explained this was due to the area having to be re-built after war time bombing. We walked quickly to escape the growing cold and hunger. Tayyabs appeared like a warm haven inviting us in with amazing smells and an excited queue of punters wafting out the door. Somehow, we managed to get seated reasonably promptly. As we took our seats, the intoxicating smoke of cooking spices violently smacked us in the face making our eyes water. Sizzling hot plates of various chilli-filled dishes walked past us in the hands of the many wait staff, causing us all to burst into chilli smoke coughing fits. We took this as a good sign.

After a quick look at the menu, I discovered no alcohol on offer. When this was mentioned to the group, it caused alarm and the hail of the closest waiter revealed that the no wine list existed due the location within a Muslim community. However they were happy for us to buy some beer from a local store to drink with our meals so this was quickly arranged. Within a very short space of time, we were happily drinking Indian beer with our incredible selection of dishes including Daal Baingun (eggplant and lentil), Karahi Bhindi (okra curry) and Saag Aloo (spinach and potato). Upon taking a bite of her Paneer Tikka, Stasa claimed it was the ‘best thing she had EVER eaten.’ This was the kind of enthusiasm for this fantastic and authentic cuisine that had attracted the obscenely long line of people who were now waiting for the luxury of sitting. This rowdy crowd forced to eventually resign our table, which had new tenants within seconds. With mouths burning, we decided to take an after dinner stroll down Brick Lane where we were accosted every few metres by dinner salesmen trying to lure us into their establishments by offering more and more absurd discounts on drinks and meals. We had the easy reply of, ‘thanks but we have already eaten,’ all ready to go but a few rallyers wouldn’t be beaten and insisted that if we wanted to eat again, we could have all the free drinks we wanted. Eventually we found ourselves at Rough Trade records where we discovered a fantastic album of Vietnamese inspired downbeat hip hop by a French artist named Onra. My new favourite record –Chinoiseries by Onra.

Tuesday was my first gig of the tour. I felt like I was back from Jet Lag City by now but thought a day at home might do me some good so I spent the day fulfilling writing fantasies by sitting at a laptop in a London apartment typing while watching the rain outside, oat biscuits and milky tea in hand.

My gig was at a place near Kings Cross called The Big Chill House. A huge but comfortable cocktail bar/ club, I was fairly sure that my folk songs wouldn’t be a good fit as soon as I walked in the door for sound check. I was playing at an established songwriter night – Hooked On Music, organised by the very tall and English-style-handsome, Tom. As I’ve learned to expect on tour, the sound person wasn’t ready for me, despite my having arrived half an hour late. Phil, the sound guy introduced himself to me and then went on to complain about how many people are making boring folk music these days and then quickly developed the annoying habit of putting his hand on the small of my back every time he spoke to me. Thankfully, Stasa turned up not long after sound check and we took the opportunity of a 2 hour gap to venture towards a highly rated Japanese restaurant few blocks away. A few metres down the road, the temperature dropped severely and hailstones suddenly burst from the sky in attack of the Earth.

I was one of four artists on the bill. By the time I started at 8.30pm, the bar was packed and noisy but had split into 2 people-created spaces which meant that the stage end of the room was now a cosy space enclosed by a semi-circle of bodies. I performed a half-hour set, receiving sympathetic mummers when I told the audience of my stolen wallet and generous whoops and applause after each song. After the show, I was approached by a group of smiling Londoners of middle age exclaiming that they had enjoyed the gig and that they were in fact from my hometown of Christchurch! They had all lived in London for 10 years or more and supplied a fantastic after-show yarn – complete with my first recipe submissions of the tour.

During my conversation with the ex-pats, we heard a fuss and looked to see that fat flakes of snow had begun to fall and were quickly coating the ground outside the bar. My excited squeal destroyed any amount of cool points I may have accumulated up until that point, but I it was completely necessary. Leaving the venue, Haydn, Stasa and I gingerly crept across the highest points of the footpath and leapt, giggling, over large puddles of slush that had formed. London has wonderfully wonky footpaths and cobblestone roads with deep gutters that form great puddles. Unfortunately, we discovered this when a double-decker bus raced past us and sent an ocean of water flying in our direction, soaking poor Haydn who had done the gentlemanly thing of walking roadside of us and who then had to withstand Stasa and I buckled over in laughter for the next five minutes as he stood dripping and cold!