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No sense of direction
I am sure we have an inborn sense of direction. Instinctively we are conditioned to know the north from the south and east from west. But this all changes for us antipodeans when in the northern hemisphere. The sun is in the south, not north and it is so easy to head in the wrong direction. In most cities our inbuilt GPS can be readjusted with the assistance of a few landmarks, but not so London and I blame the underground (as much as I love it). Even after eight or more visits here, I still get lost in the city and have little idea of the relationship of various parts of the city to each other because usually we just go from place to place on the underground, popping up like moles to see or do as we want and then disappearing underground again. This doesn’t connect the geographical dots.
Yesterday, from Trafalgar Square we got on the bus to Piccadilly Circus, only to find it is only one block away and we could have walked quicker than the bus. Bussing is part of the remedial action we have adopted to get a better sense of the place and we are now travelling as much as possible on the top deck of buses, usually wrestling other passengers from the front seats for the best vantage points. From these we have seen all sorts of things previously undiscovered or had simply forgotten about. St Clements, from the nursery rhyme, the Royal Courts of Justice and literally hundreds of buildings ranging from the ultra modern of the wharf developments to the elaborate of our historical past.
If the need for penance over getting lost becomes overwhelming, the bus home takes us past Wormwood Scrubs.