Gay Camberwell

by Layla


Sometimes I feel sheepish for posting about eating so much. You must have a vision of the Gay Camberwell team waddling from restaurant to restaurant in SE5. So I will try very hard not to mention the brilliant new Love Walk Cafe, possibly Camberwell's best breakfast venue and tea shop, having had a delicious meal in a completely full Buddha Jazz, or even having been to Angels and Gypsies twice in the one day (don't tell anyone!) first for a fantastic sandwich, and later with a group for my birthday festivities. No, I will try to distract you by demonstrating that far from being a very greedy girl, I am in fact an energetic, glamorous socialite.

First, energetic. Ah yes. I have been too ashamed til now to admit that sometimes I venture beyond the confines of SE5 but it is true. Once a week I cycle to Peckham Rye, hop on a train, and attend an ice skating lesson.Oh yes. Streatham may seem quite an incongruous place for ice skating, but in fact its rink seems to be its main attraction. Never have we managed to find a post-skate pub in the vicinity, alas. However I am proud to report that this week Roz and I passed our level 1, 2 and 3 ice skating tests. I can now go both forwards and backwards, and jump 1cm in the air on two wobbly feet. It is an accomplishment. I can heartily recommend it as an activity adventure day out from Camberwell... If any Streathamites read this blog and take great offence about their sorry lack of nice pubs in the ice rink vicinity, please do reply with suggestions of post-skate drinking establishments and I will retract at once. 

Next, glamorous. I was contacted by the Southwark Weekender last week. I was in fact in the middle of attending Roz's work leaving party and couldn't really make out what was being said. It turned out that they were doing a feature on South London's first gay wedding fair. On Monday 8th March at Beauberry House in Dulwich in fact. And before I knew what I'd done, I'd provided a silly quote and next thing I knew, we were in the paper. Clearly this implies glamour of the highest degree. Well, judge for yourself - click below to download the PDF!

And finally, socialite. Last Saturday was the famed and much-anticipated occasional Moona party, a lesbian cabaret party on a theme, in this case the French Revolution. Said party takes place in The Castle and is run by Karen McLeod, author of In Search of the Missing Eyelash (lesbian themed stalker story set in Crystal Palace). Having dined copiously, my birthday companions followed me nervously up the Castle stairs to be met with great music, mad costumes, wall-to-wall lesbians, and an occasional gay boy in a stripy t-shirt. We were serenaded on a ukelele and an impromptu life drawing class was commencing when I grew weary and headed home to bed. 

PS It's LGBT history month - Camberwell has quite a lot going on. Check out the calendar for details.