Living alone
I have been living in a new home since the last weekend in September.
Josephine and I tried looking for a house together for a while, but in the end were scuppered by the fact that Josephine's budget wouldn't stretch to half of a three-bedroom apartment, yet there was still a strong possibility that we would have her son Louis staying with us quite a bit (he is in university, and on exchange to Germany this year). Even though I knew it would only be for, at most, holidays, I still didn't feel comfortable having Louis staying with us without having a bedroom of his own. So I was trying to go for places that might be in a lower budget, but that meant they would have feature Jo didn't necessarily like, like being ex-local authority properties or not on the most savoury of roads.
So I went through the normal routine of placing an ad on Gumtree and awaited the deluge of scam emails trying to part me from a "deposit" of £500 or so without my ever viewing a property.
Yet, miraculously, this is the first email I received:
"Hi. We may have the perfect room for you (including cat!) Our flat is in Clapton on Clarence Road and has a large double room available. My boyfriend and I will be away most of the time as we will be spending most of our time in Chelmsford for the next year so you would have the flat to yourself a lot of the time. The rent would be £600pcm including all bills.
Give me a call if you are interested. I am a doctor so best to call in the evening. Sarah"
Encouraged by Kit, I leaped at the opportunity. I viewed a couple of other places, but really there was no question once I visited this one and saw that Sarah had renovated and decorated it on moving in, that there is a back garden, and that the bedroom they were offering me is HUGE (there is a second, smaller bedroom which they use when in town).
The reason they're in Chelmsford is Sarah has a one-year fellowship there, so this arrangement does have a one-year cap on it. She could be back in London or nearby in which case they'll want the place to themselves again. Or, I suppose, she might be much further afield and her partner Darrin would want to live in it (he's able to do the commute from Chelmsford because his work is in Liverpool Street, but I doubt he'd be able to go and live with her if she was in, say, Norwich for a year!). But that's OK. After a year I may be in a position to genuinely rent on my own, but even if I'm not I can certainly find something else.
They left the cat, Charlie, in the flat with me when they moved because technically the new house is no-pets-allowed, and they wanted to wait until painters and decorators had been who might give them away. Well, apparently they've now been because Charlie was picked up and taken away last week!
I haven't lived alone since I was in grad school, and I didn't actually like it much then, although I was pretty miserable all round that year. But it really does make a difference to living alone to have a critter in the house. My new temptation comes in the form of the cats rehoming section of Wood Green Animal Shelter's webpage! Three kittens! And look at Charlene, isn't she pretty?!
And there is the fact that the last time I saw Josephine, she said she is moving to a gardenless flat in Dalston and might like me to take Carbonel....!
Josephine and I tried looking for a house together for a while, but in the end were scuppered by the fact that Josephine's budget wouldn't stretch to half of a three-bedroom apartment, yet there was still a strong possibility that we would have her son Louis staying with us quite a bit (he is in university, and on exchange to Germany this year). Even though I knew it would only be for, at most, holidays, I still didn't feel comfortable having Louis staying with us without having a bedroom of his own. So I was trying to go for places that might be in a lower budget, but that meant they would have feature Jo didn't necessarily like, like being ex-local authority properties or not on the most savoury of roads.
So I went through the normal routine of placing an ad on Gumtree and awaited the deluge of scam emails trying to part me from a "deposit" of £500 or so without my ever viewing a property.
Yet, miraculously, this is the first email I received:
"Hi. We may have the perfect room for you (including cat!) Our flat is in Clapton on Clarence Road and has a large double room available. My boyfriend and I will be away most of the time as we will be spending most of our time in Chelmsford for the next year so you would have the flat to yourself a lot of the time. The rent would be £600pcm including all bills.
Give me a call if you are interested. I am a doctor so best to call in the evening. Sarah"
Encouraged by Kit, I leaped at the opportunity. I viewed a couple of other places, but really there was no question once I visited this one and saw that Sarah had renovated and decorated it on moving in, that there is a back garden, and that the bedroom they were offering me is HUGE (there is a second, smaller bedroom which they use when in town).
The reason they're in Chelmsford is Sarah has a one-year fellowship there, so this arrangement does have a one-year cap on it. She could be back in London or nearby in which case they'll want the place to themselves again. Or, I suppose, she might be much further afield and her partner Darrin would want to live in it (he's able to do the commute from Chelmsford because his work is in Liverpool Street, but I doubt he'd be able to go and live with her if she was in, say, Norwich for a year!). But that's OK. After a year I may be in a position to genuinely rent on my own, but even if I'm not I can certainly find something else.
They left the cat, Charlie, in the flat with me when they moved because technically the new house is no-pets-allowed, and they wanted to wait until painters and decorators had been who might give them away. Well, apparently they've now been because Charlie was picked up and taken away last week!
I haven't lived alone since I was in grad school, and I didn't actually like it much then, although I was pretty miserable all round that year. But it really does make a difference to living alone to have a critter in the house. My new temptation comes in the form of the cats rehoming section of Wood Green Animal Shelter's webpage! Three kittens! And look at Charlene, isn't she pretty?!
And there is the fact that the last time I saw Josephine, she said she is moving to a gardenless flat in Dalston and might like me to take Carbonel....!