Peterborough is a city by virtue of its cathedral, a beautiful medieval job that used to carry the bones of Catherine the Whatever, one of Henry VIII's birds. She was exhumed and shifted to Westminster, though, so there is no longer any significance to the building other than its architecture which, although striking, is similar to all the other ancient cathedrals dotting this country.
Without the cathedral the place would of course only be a town. It has about 150,000 people (more on them later) and all the excitement of Wangaratta on 70s Disco Nite at the Albion. This makes it a peaceful place and in 5 minutes on the bike you can be in the countryside admiring the views of the flat fields of crops and the River Nene (a bit like the Yarra only less brown). Also, Peterborough is one of the major stops on the train lines so you can get places pretty quickly: London is just under an hour away and only costs £31.00
THE FLAT
I've rented a flat. It's on the river. Well, the building's on the river, with beautiful views. I face towards the cathedral, instead, which is fine because I don't need to worry about not having an alarm clock as the delivery trucks for the Asda supermarket across the way provide that service free of charge. It's a spacious enough flat, with room enough to turn around in, but not enough to swing a cat, at least not without serious injury to the cat. I need to duck through the doors, but that's the same everywhere in this country, and the hot water service hasn't quite come to terms with what its role in the overall plan is. Naturally, the bathroom is carpeted because its a wet area and the shower was only there thanks to the previous (Australian) tenant. I had to provide my own shower curtain and rod, though. My landlord is quite mad, but a friend here says his is the same. He explains everything. In detail. It took 2 1/2 hours to show me the flat. It's a single bedroom flat. I'm not exaggerating. "Vis is da winda, an' y'see it's got vees andles wot you can turn, like vis, and push an da winda opens. And ven, watch carefly, like, if ya want jus a bit a air comin in, you can pull da winda shut again, but not all the way or you wown get any air in. Oh, an I almos forgot, vair are keys ere and you put em in this bit of da andle and turn em in da lock so you can't open it, like." And on and on and on and on and on. Again, I am not exaggerating.
So this place was furnished and the first thing I did was to buy new linen (I realy don't like my linen furry), remove the lace curtains (tasteful) and the lampshapes (ditto), and the porcelain doll on the bedside table. ("Vat's one of dem porcelain dolls wot was poplar in da Edwardian times which is when my ability to recognise taste clearly ceased to be a goin concern.") There was even an iron and a board (designed for midgets with one leg shorter than the other) and a plethora of unstable chairs. Oddly, there were no plates on the wall.
There's a also a vacuum. Fascinating! I hear you cry. But wait. This vacuum is clearly in as much confusion as the boiler about what it's meant to do, and so Emerton, my insane landlord, who's a cleaner, by the way, demonstrated how to use it. With the shortest, narrowest attachment to get the most suck, bent double, doing a room a day, or maybe just half an hour a day, so that after 5 days you can repeat the cycle, not forgetting to vacuum the bed after use because I like to go to bed filthy because no-one likes showers in this country and baths (sorry, barves) are much more popular, if less effective at making you clean.
The shower is wonderful, though. Bless the previous tenants' Australian hearts. It's a pump with a built in heating element so the boiler (tepider?) doesn't even enter into the equation. These things excite you after two weeks at Mike's place sitting in the bath with a handheld nozzle and near zero water pressure and NO SOAP. (Thank god I had my own. I know I haven't been reading the papers, so you have to tell me if a new study has shown soap to be bad for you. It's as rare as hen's teeth in this country, it really is.) Anyway, my shower has something resembling water pressure, if you kinda squint and look at it from a distance.
THE LOCAL POPULATION
I think I should perform a public service whilst I'm here and locate and destroy that centre of Peterboroughian entertainment: the Ugly Tree. It's clearly a public safety issue, judging by the number of people who have fallen out of it (nearly everyone), not to mention a public health and well-being issue, judging my how many branches they hit on the way down (nearly every one). Tattoos are hugely popular, too, as are cigarettes and being overweight. Everytime I come back from London I step off the train and a part of me gives a cry and goes into a coma. I think it's my libido.
I've got to get transferred to London.
To find out why, stay tuned. I haven't a lot to say about the place other than I blundered across a charging of the guard at Buck House and got to follow it up to St James Palace, which was cool; it's vibrant and exciting and full of life and international (really international, not international like Sydney likes to think it is); and the high foreign population raises the BQ well into the positive; and there's more work there; and stuff to do; and museums and art galleries and shopping, even. (Actually, that's it, you've heard why, now.) Which reminds me. Peterborough, according to my Lonely Planet, likes to advertise itself as the shopping capital of England. No, really! This is like saying Wangaratta likes to advertise itself as the surfing capital of Australia. I guess it's because Pboro has a bunch of chain stores like Marks and Spencer, Woolworths and the Pound Shop. Woo-hoo. And they all shut early, too.
Anyway, everyone's back in the office so I'd best sign off for now. Once more, apologies for any advertising placed on this email by my IT department. Feel free to write and remind me that there is an outside world and that maybe I'm not stuck in the godforsaken third world hell hole for ever. Geez I've got to get to London.
