Mission Statement

In the past three years, I have lived in three countries and spent time in well over a dozen. For over a year of this time period, I documented this rather fantasy-like lifestyle in my retired blog, the Voyage of the Miller. In that now defunct blog, I started each entry by listing my current location and--until the final days--would not create a new entry unless I could announce that my location was in a different city than in my prior post, reflecting my transient life and ideals towards flexibility and risk-taking.

I ultimately quit blogging not because my views change but because I wanted to spend my final year living in Barcelona not writing about other cities but becoming a member of my neighbourhood, allowing me to feel that I truly experienced the city and my barrio, not that I just slept there for two years.

This leads me to my new project, Window into Bayswater. Bayswater is a neighbourhood in west London, sandwiched between the more famous neighbours Notting Hill and Paddington, where I have been living since moving to London more permanently in August 2011. While unable to vote here, I intend to become a true member of this community (becoming a recognized regular at the local establishments, becoming an authority on the area's eccentricities and establishments, and becoming an expert on its history), and and plan on documenting the challenge in this blog.

Two East-West thoroughfares traverse the neighbourhood, Bayswater Road and Westbourne Grove. While Bayswater Road lends its name to the neighborhood and represents the southern boundary with Hyde Park and Kennsington Garden, Westbourne Grove serves as the primarily commercial street and will be the focal point of this blog. I live in a corner apartment on this street and arguably have the most intimate view of the activity occurring on our community's main street, one level below me. From my living room couch, I can literally communicate with the pedestrians on the street and the passengers on the double-decker buses. Due to this unique perspective, the window from my living room will serve as my window for sharing with all of you this community and my attempts to join it. All photos will be taken from my windows into Bayswater, and I trust most inspiration will come from them too.