Some people count sheep when they can’t sleep. We check how much film is in the camera and whether we are up for an adventure the next morning.
At 3am, with sleep clearly off the table we decided to act on the throwaway linen from the night before and give up trying. Instead we got up, got dressed and put the coffee machine on reading to head into London. There is something oddly freeing about those early hours. No expectations, no emails, just the quiet hum of possibility. So we grabbed some rolls of film, pulled on some clothes, made the coffees in takeaway mugs and headed for the west end.
Yes. London. At 3am. Because sometimes the only thing that makes sense is something that does not make any sense at all.
The roads were empty. Just us and the occasional lorry, the orange glow of streetlights flickering past. Oh and milkmen going out on their rounds. By 3.45am we were parked in a side road in Soho, which is practically unheard of in daylight hours. You wouldnt even consider it normally. But then this trip was far from normal.
Soho at that time is another world. Neon signs buzz quietly to themselves. Clubbers drift out into the night, glitter smudged and shoes abandoned. One person was arguing with a slice of pizza. Another was trying to get into a taxi that very much was not a taxi but in fact a G-Wagon. Bruce took it all in with mild curiosity, like he had seen it all before. Some very friendly ladies in a massage parlour asked if he would like to join them and when they saw our cameras a bunch of rowdy lads asked for us to take their photos too. Stepping over bags of rubbish on the kerb suddenly felt like it was something we did everyday.
We wandered with the cameras, watching the lights reflect in puddles and windows. The city was still awake, just about, and that made it feel like we were walking through the last scene of someone else’s night out. For the people the wrong side of a police cordon at the end of Brewer St it was the last scene of their night out.
There was a weird kind of peace in it all. The British media would have you believe that London is a no go zone but we didn’t find that at all. Yes we kept out wits about us but didnt feel worried about ourselves, or the car.
When Soho finally started to exhale, we got back in the car and drove to St Pauls. Parking in another side street we snapped from across the road, through the trees and disappeared before anybody came to tell us we had to move.
Next stop was the river. The Thames was calm, quietly going about its business. We stopped across from the Oxo Tower and the Shard and took a few shots as the sky began to shift into something close to morning. The city was starting to stretch. As was my bladder after that early cuppa but you probably dont need to hear about that wild wee near Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
And then, in what was probably also not the most sensible move of the night, we paused in the middle of Lambeth Bridge. Bruce came to a halt, told me to take the lens cap off and get out of the car. I did as he suggested and managed to grab a quick photo of the Palace of Westminster before dashing back to the car as the lights at the start of the bridge went from red to green. Moving on before the traffic behind us caught up with us London was ours for those few brief minutes.
By 7am we were back home. The sun was up. The kettle was on. We had full rolls of film and the kind of grin you only get from doing something completely ridiculous.
Sometimes insomnia is just an excuse to chase neon and make memories while the rest of the world is still asleep.