Last updated on October 28th, 2020
Hello, bonjour. I’m Scarlett and this is my London blog
Diary of a Londoness.
I’m a match made in madness. I may be a Londoner now, but I come from a real cornucopia of nationalities, languages and cultures.
Let’s begin with my father: a Uruguayan of Russian extraction who grew up in Buenos Aires, moved to Paris when he was 20, and became an artist, writer and cinema owner (Volf Roitman). Sprinkle in a blonde bombshell, Shelley from Dallas, Texas, who also ended up in Paris, working for Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. She turned a used sex shop in Les Halles’ seedy quarter into an art-house cinema, and then went on to became a successful published author. She dabbled for years with her pen from her home in Florida, surrounded by Spanish moss and alligators.
I was born in Paris in 1968, the year that saw young Parisians go to war with the government over the right to have sex. I stayed in the City of Lights for fifteen years. Christmases in my ivy-covered Parisian house included a brouhaha of French, Spanish, English, Russian and the occasional Yiddish thrown in for good measure, with everyone speaking at the same time. It was an unusual childhood.
At the tender age of 15, I packed my bags and left for Sweet Briar College, Virginia where I spent four happy years in an all women’s college, which arguably has one of the most beautiful campuses in the USA. I graduated with a BA in Creative Writing and decided to carry on with my studies in London. Enter King’s College, where I studied for my MA in English Literature and fell in love with Dickens and Baudelaire. I was having a love affair with two cities.
Now, I live in Hammersmith, home to London’s most beautiful bridge and a pub crawl that makes the most hardened tipplers wince. I watch London’s liquid highway – the River Thames – out of my office window, and it’s a magical place to witness the young and the restless, the rowers and sailors, the regattas, the cruises cruising, and the ducks quacking. I’m also lucky enough to have London’s oldest riverside pub on my doorstep, home to the smallest bar in the Guinness Book of Records, and once frequented by the pseudo Parisian, Ernest Hemingway. So I suppose I have come full circle – it’s not café culture, but gosh, I’m a Londoner now!
I have three beautiful daughters. There’s 8 years between each of them, and I started at 21, so I’ll let you do the maths! I married my Parisian childhood sweetheart, a Brit who looks like a bit like Harrison Ford, and we also have a four-legged daughter, slightly hairier than my husband.
Diary of a Londoness – A London Blog
Walk with me through the streets of London and beyond, and experience what it’s like to live in the world’s culture capital. Diary of a Londoness includes outings to museums and galleries, the theatre, cinema and opera, as well as where to eat, drink, shop, and what to do with the little darlings. I like to travel, so I sometimes pen my adventures abroad.
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I sometimes receive complimentary tickets and passes for museums, galleries, theatre and opera. My reviews are always my own. I also sometimes make a small commission via affiliate links on this site. This is at no extra cost to you and helps towards the maintenance of my website. Thanks for your support.