Finding my way

I have to admit that upon arrival, I found London’s constantly changing street names and scatter shot numbering frightening, frustrating and confusing. I doubt I am the only person.

There are streets that literally change names 4 times in 100 meters with no intervening or indicative change in direction or even intersection. There is a spot, on my very street, almost outside my very house where the street changes it’s name for 5 houses and then mystifyingly changes back.

And it only changes on one side. The other side remains serenely undisturbed.

As for numbering, that’s a whole other Escheresq nightmare.

Some streets alternate numbers side to side, others run up one side and down the opposite. Yet others just start where they like and skip numbers randomly.

My building doesn’t have a number at all as far as I, the current owners, the previous owners, other residents on the building and the City of Westminster have been able to tell. Instead it has a name, which is charming but difficult to give directions to. I have even found a street that literally has no discernable order at all.

All of which contributed to me, on a number of occasions becoming famously lost. Long evenings were spent circling around the streets of London in search of some (reputedly) fabulous cocktail party or other and ending up with me sitting crying, sober and unfulfilled on a gutter until a nice member of the constabulary found me and kindly took me home.

Or on one occasion to their house, which is another story entirely, but suffice to say ended well for all concerned.

Now that I have been a resident in Britains great capital for a while, things have changed. The once seemingly malice driven street planning now makes enough sense that I don’t get lost (often) while London’s constantly changing street names and random numbering has become charming, quaint and endearing.

Not to mention the almost endless entertainment to be had watching tourists, and new arrivals, find my beloved city’s baroque urban planning idiosyncrasies frightening, frustrating and confusing.

I could, of course, offer my assistance, but then where would the fun be in that?