Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner

It is official. I am a Londoner. For the first time in 18 years, I qualify as a permanent resident of Albion’s capital. I am no longer just spending the majority of my time here; no longer a constant tourist, a visitor who does not know when to leave.

According to all the bureaucrat paperwork I now live full-time in London. It is great. I even qualify for a resident’s card bestowing legitimate library user status and discounts at everywhere from the zoo to the puppet theatre.

Crawling upstream, moving from the hazy estuary border of salt and fresh to my new canalside mooring, I am another alien who has found a home in the hoodoo mix. The polarities have been reversed. When the train passes under the M25 on Tuesday, it will have stopped representing the point where London’s gravitational power splutters out and Essex reasserts itself. It has now become the barrier between future and past. The edge of my city home and the new away of an estuarial satellite destination.

To mark this special day, I have been given gifts. Black glass goblets, green metal kangaroos and cooking bibles. Over curry and champagne, watching a feature film about a boy from Southend who makes mistakes, but is smart enough to learn from them, everything changes.

So, join me in softly singing:

‘I get a funny feeling inside of me
When walking up and down
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London Town’