Well, since many people have been asking us where we live I’ve decided to make our flat the topic of my first ever blog posting!

We had a little difficulty finding a place to live here in London. My company provided four weeks accommodation in a serviced flat. After four weeks we had to move out or pay for the serviced flat ourselves. Since it cost more than twice our housing budget, we had to be out.

We ended up “bidding on” three places (yeah funnily enough the posted rent is not what you actually pay, you make an offer typically 10% less than asking and the landlord isn’t allowed to show it to anybody else until he/she responds to your offer). The first place we bid on was in Belsize Park. The only problem was that our couches were on a boat heading towards London and this apartment came with a shabby old loveseat. We asked the landlady to remove it, the agent said it would not be a problem, but it was. After a week of deliberation (and asking us to pay 70 pounds a month to store it) she decided it could not be removed from the apartment. So she probably missed out on at least two weeks rent waiting for another tenant when the couch was only worth about two days rent.

The second place we bid on would be considered a cheeky bargain. The apartment was in Putney and the current tenants were vacating after only six months on a two-year lease. The tenants and landlady agreed that they should try to rent it as quickly as possible and the tenants would pay the difference between what they were paying and what the new tenants were willing to pay. Enter us - now only a week away from needing a place to live, we are able to move in very quickly. We put in a bid and it was accepted. We were excited, this place was nice, much better the shabby couch place, and a real bargain! Only problem was that it was a little far from central London, but at least it was a great neighborhood. Well when it came time to sign everything, the landlord noticed that we had cats. This wasn’t the first time the information was presented to her, just the first time she paid attention. “Any other animal is fine, but I’m allergic to cats.” she said as she bailed on the deal. I’m thinking, you’re not going to be in there much, I’ll buy you as much Clariton as you need.

So now we have less than a week and no place to live. Well we found a nice little place in West Hampstead that we really liked and now we live there. It has a nice kitchen and a beautiful garden! We’ll post pictures as soon as we deal with our storage issues. For now I’ve posted pictures of the garden. The flowers are gorgeous right now.

And for those of you that I told that our backyard might border on a cemetery, I was wrong the cemetery is behind the houses on the north side of the street we live on the south. There is some sort of underground reservoir behind our backyard. From our fence it just looks like a grassy field.

So my first post is a long one. Don’t get used to this sort of thing. Expect one-liners in the future.

Garden Photos