on the matter of house-hunting

Well, I'm quite frankly impressed with myself! I managed to get up on three and a half hours of sleep and spend the morning house-hunting yesterday. I should state now that I hate trying to find somewhere to live, just like every single other person on the planet, but this time I'm actually fairly hopeful about the process. Although to truly give a proper understanding of why my hopefulness is an unusual thing maybe I should explain my previous experiences in this area.

Back when we were students and hence scattered all over the country and had to make a special trip to this fine city then we only had a matter of days to find somewhere. The reasons for this ranged from the decent ("I have a biology field trip starting on Friday that's worth 15% of my second year so I kind of have to go") to the frankly insane ("Oh I can't do it on Monday or Tuesday because it's my year and seven month anniversary with my boyfriend"). Finding a four bed house in central London (where they don’t actually have families – no really, it’s a fact. I checked) on two days notice, slap bang in the middle of the time period that every other student is looking is not an easy task.

In fact such a “not easy task” that we chose to stay in our mouse infested, living room free home with the faulty boiler and a flatmate who drove us occasionally nuts (although now we don’t live with her she’s much less crazy inducing) for another year – just to avoid the pain of moving.

The second time it wasn’t so much the timing that was the issue so much as the cost. Two of us had no clue what we were even doing in the months to come (read: “or ever”) and although I knew that I’d get something semi-lucrative my other directionless friend was less sure – an ecology degree in the centre of the largest urban area in the country is actually surprisingly useless. I know: shocker. And the other is struggling on a PhD stipend. We spent weeks trudging round tower blocks (complete with pre-requisite burnt out cars and used needles), on the verge of crying before eventually saying “fuck it” and essentially selling our souls for our current flat. Sure, the rent is obscene, our land lady is batshit crazy (apparently the curtains in the living room are worth £2000 and the chandeliers in the living room and hall are supposed to be professionally cleaned on a monthly basis oh and also: no men or parties are allowed), the place is falling down (we went for a month without heating or hot water in the middle of fucking February) and I have to spend three hours a day travelling because I work on the other side of the city but it’s not so bad.

So why am I happy about the prospect of moving again (aside from the aforementioned psychopathic landlady, shitty plumbing and nightmare commute)? Well although we sacrifice one flatmate to the land of "doing a masters degree in conservation in the middle of the countryside" we gain another: in the form of my other flatmate’s boyfriend. This is fantastic news as it means that next year our rent is instantly lowered, because they’re sharing a room. Finding a two bed place is one hell of a lot easier than finding a three bed place and it means that unlike before we’re actually looking in the upper end of our price bracket so we’re not competing for places with students – and in a city where there is zero student housing this is a large bonus.


But why am I most excited? We’re moving to a cheaper area. And as we currently live in the pricey part of town (and I work in the scummy part) this means we just move closer and closer to where I need to be.

Let me explain: I currently have to wake up at 6:30 to drag myself out of bed by 7:00 so that I can get to work for 9:00am. If I’m lucky I get home by 7:30pm which gives me a grand total of three whole hours to myself before it hits half ten and I have to think about sleeping because otherwise there’s no chance I’ll even be conscious the next morning. Going out after work is completely out during the week because unless I want to be verging on the dead the next morning I have to leave early, and even if I don’t care about feeling like crap for a whole day staying out any later than midnight means it’s going to take me over three hours just to get home (which also translates into three hours of sleep that night - ace).

Moving to somewhere within a half hour journey of my work means that I save two hours every single week day on travel. And, because I don’t have to get up so early, I can actually start keeping the hours of a normal person again. Oh yes, this move potentially nets me an extra three to four hours of free time every single day. And what am I going to do with my newfound twenty hours of free time every week? Am I going to join a gym? Take up dancing again? Learn to play a musical instrument? Perhaps some form of charity work? No! There is something far more productive I can be doing with my time.

Why of course: I’m going to play video games and go to the cinema.


In other news: I actually got my application form in on time in the end so if there are any fingers to be crossed I'd appreciate it! I also managed to be moderation girl on Friday and even wake up yesterday sans my usual level of post-drinking paranoia so it appears my future predicting abilities are on the fritz. Oh and: Vive la Pajiba name formatting revolution!